EVERYONE knows that, as with evolution itself, many bright ideas which might have changed the world never saw the light of day, writes Chris Koenig.

They fell upon stony ground. No-one could or would finance them.

But Oxfordshire people have less excuse than most for not pursuing their brainwaves; the county is home to Mr Lucius Cary, the brains behind Britain's oldest marriage bureau, designed to marry ideas and money together.

He is chairman of Venture Capital Report. It functions in smart offices at the Magdalen Science Park, having moved there recently from Henley. It has been nurturing young businesses with that powerful fertiliser called money for 18 years.

Now he has written - and in true entrepreneurial spirit published himself - a book giving practical guidance both to those seeking capital and those investing in small businesses. He has learned his trade the hard way. As a young chaser after money 25 years ago he found out that there is such a thing as a free lunch. He advertised in two national papers for someone to put money into his coffee bar idea, went to see a man in Brighton who said he was a potential investor - only to discover that the elderly fellow in tweed was in reality interested only in placing himself at the receiving end of an expensive lunch!

And there was the rub, how on earth was an honest would-be hamburger merchant ever to establish who was a genuine potential source of backing and who was mere chaff. It seemed to be an entirely hit and miss affair.

True, he had found funds to the tune of £26,000 in 1972 (equivalent to £250,000 now) through classified newspaper ads for the American Hamburger idea, but in the process had realised that the fundamental business of helping others raise money was itself a potentially useful money-making proposition.

So the Eton, Oxford, and Harvard educated entrepreneur sold the hamburger bars, where he had cooked, cleaned and waited at table, and started helping others to help themselves instead. Venture Capital Report came into being.

His book, called Lucius Cary's Guide to Raising Capital for the Smaller Business, is therefore based on 25 years experience in the fields both of raising money and providing it.

It kicks off by pointing out the obvious, that a business plan should convince possible investors that there is a demand for the product or service being proposed.

An American soap manufacturing millionaire told me once that he only backed products that were cheap, needed by all, and didn't last - but apparently more detail than that is required to raise money these days!

Mr Cary's book takes readers step by step through the business plan, suggesting headings: The Market; Production; Financial Data; Financial Structure.

It leads on to consider questions besetting anyone contemplating setting out in business on their own: the debt to equity ratio and division of control.

Incidentally, as a rough guide the equity split should be along the lines of 33 per cent of ownership for the idea; 33 per cent for management; and 33 per cent for the money provider. Mr Cary's focus on the role of business angels as a source of capital for wannabe moguls is timely: a major new study from Oxford University's Said Business School has discovered that they are between 30 and 40 times more likely to fund the process of turning ideas into money than are venture capitalists.

Business angels are typically wealthy individuals who invest their own money in start-up and incubator-stage businesses and then use their varied experience to help firms grow.

Venture capitalists are professional investors who invest on behalf of their fund providers. They are usually unable to back smaller concerns as obligations to fund providers impose time and management constraints. But Lucius Cary now covers the venture capitalist angle too: he also runs Seed Capital Ltd to help large fund managers seek out smaller customers with bright ideas.

For example venture capital giants 3i have put funds at his disposal to fund such entrepreneurs as pioneers in telecommunications, Nexus which is based at Kidlington.

His latest venture into the world of funding other people's ventures is the Venture Capital Trust (VCT), which floated successfully on the London Stock Exchange last year.

VCT is a Trust that sits well with Oxford's growing reputation as a hi-tech centre well geared to exploiting commercially ideas that spin off from university rersearch.

Sir Martin Wood, founder of Oxford Instruments and the chairman of Oxford Innovation, is among the group of five businessmen who set up the Trust to fund high-tech ideas within a 60-mile radius of Oxford.

VCT aims to invest between £150,000 and £500,000 in businesses judged to have particularly strong potential. VCT itself represents a tax efficient way for investors to put their money into new innovations, with 67 per cent of the money finding its way into early-stage companies and 33 per cent into start-ups. The reason the Trust is tax efficient is that benefits to investors can include 20 per cent tax relief on sums invested up to £100,000 and capital gains tax exemption on disposal of any shares in the venture capital trust. Sir Martin's presence on the board of the Trust is significant.

He is the founder of the Oxford Trust, set up to promote scientific ideas, which provides incubator premises for technology companies.

One way and another therefore, Oxfordshire people with brainy ideas are likely to be better served than their counterparts in other parts of the country.

With luck and skill they should be able to arm themselves with Mr Cary's book, take advice from Venture Capital Report, raise funds from either angels or venture capitalists, start up in incubator premises at low rents . . . . then the sky is the limit.

Ideas that have hit the VCT funding jackpot to date include: a bacteria-killing coating for fridges and food surfaces (£120,000); an instrument that gives instant and accurate readings of the curvature of optical surfaces (£164,000); a system for archiving documents intelligently in electronic form (£150,000); specialist software for the tool hire industry (£150,000); a potential treatment for Alzheimers's and Parkinson's Diseases (£120,000).

The method that ideas appear for funding is itself revealing of the way in which human ingenuity responds to needs as they hit the headlines.

For example, Biocote, the coating for fridges etc., is an invention of its time, the brainchild of two entrepreneurs who joined forces in 1994. Statistics show that cases of food poisoning continue to rise and every so often a major incident, with multiple deaths, hits the headlines. So a practical solution in the shape of a bactericidal powder that could be applied in the factory to fridges, freezers, food preparation surfaces, hospital beds and handrails, was a surefire supplicant for funds.

Synaptica, on the other hand was formed in response to a different need. Oxford University funded research into Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases until December 1997. Then the company was formed.

Again statistics show that the research of Oxford academics may have commercial as well as humanitarian uses. By the year 2050 projections indicate that 14m people in the United States alone may suffer from Alzheimer's Disease.

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