Publications

2017
Working Paper

And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Q. Wang

With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Gender; Venture Capital; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets

SSRN

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October 2021
Article

And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Calder-Wang

With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Diversity; Gender; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets

SSRN

13 Aug 2018
Blog Post

Following My Dream: Launching a Venture

smoodi during my second year at HBS. During fall, our goal will be to raise funds and build a first machine prototype allowing for further testing. Several companies have already signed up for our beta-test. Having the best learning... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

21 Feb 2024
Blog Post

Hiring at HBS: How Summer Interns Make an Impact at Bridges Fund Management

Fund Management, HBS students are motivated to propel the success of those businesses. Meet Bridges Fund Management Founded in 2002, Bridges, the UK-based impact investing fund, is committed to building a... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity

2012
Article

Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs

By: Mozaffar N. Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim

In tests of the equity market timing theory of external finance, the prior literature has used overvaluation identifiers such as high market-to-book and high prior returns that are likely correlated with other determinants of SEOs. We use price pressure resulting from... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Market Transactions; Valuation; Capital Structure; Market Timing; Mathematical Methods; Acquisition

08 Feb 2022
Blog Post

Get to Know Past New Venture Competition Winners: Everly Health

With the New Venture Competition (NVC) Finale right around the corner and in celebration of the competition’s 25 years at Harvard Business School, we caught up with some of the past participants across the three tracks (Alumni, Student... View Details

February 2024
Case

Vespucci Partners: The New World of Venture Capital in Hungary

By: Paul A. Gompers, Tonia Labruyere and Emilie Billaud

Julia Sohajda was the young, female founding partner of the Hungarian VC firm Vespucci Partners, which focused on investing at seed stage into Hungarian deep tech startups and prepare them for a launch in the U.S market. Vespucci's first fund had largely been comprised... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Startups; Investment Funds; Financing and Loans; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Hungary; United States

June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble

What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details

October 2018
Case

Fairview Capital

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Collins

JoAnn Price and Dr. Larry Morse were the first African-Americans to launch a fund of funds in the private equity industry. Their fund, Fairview capital, was created in response to the dearth of capital invested in private equity funds managed by black and other... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Fund Of Funds; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Decision Making; Strategy; United States

April 2018
Article

We Ask Men to Win & Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding

By: Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark Conley and E. Tory Higgins

Male entrepreneurs are known to raise higher levels of funding than their female counterparts, but the underlying mechanism for this funding disparity remains contested. Drawing upon Regulatory Focus Theory, we propose that the gap originates with a gender bias in the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Finance; Gender; Prejudice and Bias

Web

7 Tips for a Successful Technology Venture Immersion - MBA

Blog Blog MBA Voices Filter Results Arrow Down Arrow Up Read posts from Author Alumni Author Career and Professional Development Staff Author HBS Community Author HBS Faculty Author MBA Admissions Author MBA Students Topics Topics 1st Year (RC) 2+2 Program 2nd Year... View Details

2003
Chapter

Short-Term America Revisited? Boom and Bust in the Venture Capital Industry and the Impact on Innovation

By: Josh Lerner and Paul A. Gompers

This chapter seeks to understand the implications of the recent decline in venture activity for innovation. It argues that the situation may not be as grim as it initially appears. While there are many reasons for believing that on average venture capital has a... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Business Cycles; Financial Services Industry; United States

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04 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Tapping into “Nontraditional” Private Equity and Venture Capital Talent at HBS

Recruiters reviewing hundreds of resumes for highly coveted roles in private equity and venture capital will often see candidates with backgrounds in banking and investing. This training and experience provides candidates with excellent... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Venture Capital

19 Sep 2012
News

The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail

Web

Field Course: Venture Capital Journey - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog Field Course: Venture Capital Journey Course Number 6728 Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Bussgang Fall; Q1Q2; 3.0 credits Paper Please see this video for more on this course. Click here for application The application is due... View Details

21 Aug 2015
Blog Post

My Fear of Student Debt: Funding the HBS/HKS Joint Degree

years instead of the traditional two years for an MBA or MPP alone. I also knew I wanted to start or join an early stage and socially focused venture after graduation that would likely not pay me as well as some more traditional post-MBA... View Details

20 Jul 2007
Keynote Speech

The New Activist Investors: Private Equity, Hedge Funds and Takeovers

By: W. Carl Kester

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Change

September 2013
Case

Homestrings, Inc.: Diaspora-Based Financing and the Crowd Funding of Development

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Homestrings is an online investment platform for overseas diasporas to link financially with their home countries. The founder believes crowd-funding can become a pillar for development, but U.S. regulatory hurdles and resources constraints are substantial. The company... View Details

Keywords: Diasporas; Investments; Regulations; Africa; Crowd-funding; Development Finance; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Services Industry; Africa; United States

August 2017
Article

The First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures

By: Thomas F. Hellmann and Noam Wasserman

We examine the trade-off between efficiency and equality within the context of entrepreneurial founding teams. Using a formal theory where founders may have preferences over relative outcomes, we derive predictions about the antecedents and consequences of dividing... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Entrepreneurship; Equity