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- October 2024
- Article
Sampling Bias in Entrepreneurial Experiments
By: Ruiqing Cao, Rembrand Koning and Ramana Nanda
Using data from a prominent online platform for launching new digital products, we document that ‘sampling bias’—defined as the difference between a startup’s target customer base and the actual sample on which early ‘beta tests’ are conducted—has a systematic and... View Details
- July 2024
- Article
JUE Insight: Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India's GQ Highway Network
By: Abhiman Das, Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover, William Kerr and Ramana Nanda
We use data from Reserve Bank of India to study the impact of India's Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project on finance-dependent activity. Loan volumes increase by 20-30% in districts along GQ and are stronger in industries more dependent upon external finance.... View Details
- June 2024
- Supplement
Financing Matillion’s Scaleup (B1): Matthew Scullion
By: Ray Kluender, Emanuele Colonnelli and Ramana Nanda
(B1): Matthew Scullion confidential information for term sheet negotiation. View Details
- February 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Financing Matillion's Scaleup (A)
By: Raymond Kluender, Emanuele Colonnelli and Ramana Nanda
In 2019, Matthew Scullion, founder and CEO of U.K. startup Matillion, faced a decision about which term sheet to accept for the lead investor in his company’s $35 million Series C financing round. Would the connections and opportunities offered by Silicon Valley-based... View Details
- September 2022
- Article
House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda
During 1992-2007, house price growth is strongly correlated with local entrepreneurship. We show with Census Bureau data that most of this entry is related to construction and real estate; these entrants tend to be small and short-lived. Using a 1998 Texas reform that... View Details
- Article
Financing Constraints, Home Equity and Selection into Entrepreneurship
By: Thais Laerkholm Jensen, Søren Leth-Petersen and Ramana Nanda
We exploit a mortgage reform that differentially unlocked home equity across the Danish population and study how this impacted selection into entrepreneurship. We find that increased entry was concentrated among entrepreneurs whose firms were founded in industries... View Details
- 2021
- Article
Venture Capital Booms and Startup Financing
By: William Janeway, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We review the growing literature on the relationship between venture capital booms and startup financing, focusing on three broad areas: First, we discuss the drivers of large inflows into the venture capital asset class, particularly in recent years—which are related... View Details
- Summer 2020
- Article
Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn
By: Josh Lerner and Ramana Nanda
Venture capital is associated with some of the most high-growth and influential firms in the world. Academics and practitioners have effectively articulated the strengths of the venture model. At the same time, venture capital financing also has real limitations in its... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
How Resilient Is Venture-Backed Innovation? Evidence from Four Decades of U.S. Patenting
By: Sabrina T. Howell, Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda and Richard Townsend
Despite theoretical predictions to the contrary, corporate innovation is strongly pro-cyclical. In this paper, we compare innovation in the economy as a whole to that of firms backed by venture capital (VC), a source of capital associated with the most impactful young... View Details
- October 2019 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
NewView Capital and Venture Capital Secondaries
By: Shai Bernstein, Ramana Nanda and Allison Ciechanover
While still a general partner at Silicon Valley–based New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Ravi Viswanathan considered the challenges presented by evolving market dynamics in the venture capital space. Startups were staying private longer, which led to limited partners... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates
By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has... View Details
- Article
The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda
In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin... View Details
- October 2018 (Revised February 2018)
- Case
Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund
In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The... View Details
- July 2018
- Case
Financing Anghami's Growth
By: Ramana Nanda and Eren Kuzucu
In December 2012, less than two years into the founding of their music-streaming platform Anghami, cofounders Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun found themselves evaluating an unorthodox term sheet. Habib and Maroun needed to make a decision vis-à-vis the proposal put forth by... View Details
Keywords: Growth; Startups; Copyright; Business Startups; Business Model; Music Entertainment; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Development; Expansion; Digital Platforms; Agreements and Arrangements; Valuation; Decision Making; Middle East; Lebanon
- June 2018
- Article
Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in... View Details
- September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Chai Point: Disrupting Chai
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani
Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Stock; Business Model; Mobile Technology; Technological Innovation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Food; Selection and Staffing; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Resignation and Termination; Compensation and Benefits; Resource Allocation; Product Positioning; Distribution Channels; Product Design; Supply Chain; Governing and Advisory Boards; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Asia; India; Karnataka; Bangalore
- 2017
- Chapter
Innovation Policies
By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation, but has not examined how this affects which projects principals will start. We demonstrate that failure tolerance has an equilibrium price – in terms of an investor’s... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates
By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has... View Details
- April 2017
- Article
Financing Risk and Innovation
By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with a greater degree of experimentation by investors. Investors respond to financing risk―a forecast of limited future funding―by modifying... View Details