Mary Kay James, managing director at DuPont Ventures, the venturing unit of the US industrials group, said the US was still most promising for clean-tech deals.
However, the corporate venturing head at a healthcare company said: "The US for now, but it is rapidly losing its edge to Europe and Asia due to regulatory sclerosis in the US.
"The FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration] is too risk-averse. They impose unreasonable burdens of proof on start-ups. For example, antibiotic-focused companies not only have to show their products are safe and noninferior to currently approved products – they have to show they are superior.
"This is a crazy position to hold and against both the American and world public’s best interests given that micro-organisms are in a continual evolutionary arms race and drugs that work well today may not 10 years from now.
"An agency that was really working for the public good, and not terrified of political blow-back if they approve something that later is not as good as hoped, would encourage innovation with clear guidance and stable predictable rules. Better to let early innovations come through with approval and allow subsequent iterations to improve and perfect."
The health of the world’s largest economy was also expected to affect other countries. One said: "Taiwan should do well but is closely linked to the US economy. Japan has problems with the strong yen."
The US was far above any other region in terms of an attractive place to strike deals, but a number of people said Europe, particularly UK, France and Sweden, was most promising from a financial returns perspective and also the quality of companies and the ecosystem supporting innovation.
Shin Nagakura, executive managing director of Japanbased outsourcing provider Transcosmos (Silicon Valley office), said: "We did [our] first investment in UK in 2011. That European trend will go on to 2012 and beyond. China and Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries are important too [along with the Commonwealth of Independent States surrounding Russia]."
In the rest of the world, Israel was rated highly as were China and the broader Asian markets, although emerging markets such as China were still regarded as "wild cards".
Andrew Gaule, founder of innovation forum Corven
Networks, said: "High-growth (emerging) economies, for example China, are going to be passing the tipping point where sales, manufacturing and research will make it a key area to develop venturing approaches."