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Entrepreneurs with ideas of uncertain value have to be matched with investors to create economic value. If the matching procedure does not involve screening of ideas, all investors form the same expectation and compete away any profit. Conversely, if the procedure involves screening, the entrepreneur expects that the investor uses his inside information and extracts rents from him. This threat can deter the development of innovations and reduce welfare. This paper proposes a mechanism, called semi-public contest, to mitigate the dilemma. It combines public information on contest winners with private information on contest losers and is attractive for investors and entrepreneurs.