Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,167)
- Faculty Publications (1,083)
- November 2021 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Hitting Home: Amazon and Mary's Place
By: Paul M. Healy, Debora L. Spar and Amy Klopfenstein
In 2020, Amazon, the $386 billion online retail behemoth, built an eight-story shelter for women and families experiencing homelessness on its expanding headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The shelter, operated in partnership with a non-profit organization known as... 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
- November 2021
- Article
Venture Capitalists and COVID-19
By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev
We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
The 2012 Spanish Labor Reform: Lifting All Boats, or Leveling Down?
By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella, Santiago Botella and Elena Corsi
Since 1978, Spain had struggled to control unemployment. The country’s labor law was protective of employees hired long-term and companies used temporary contracts as buffers. In 2012, amid economic recession and a 23.6% unemployment rate, a center-right government of... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Labor Market; Unemployment; Recession; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government Legislation; International Relations; Working Conditions; Employment; Labor Unions; Contracts; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Spain; European Union
- October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Engine No. 1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil
By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski
ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
upGrad: Delivering Career Outcomes Online: Degree by Degree
By: John J-H Kim, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
In August 2021, the founders of upGrad, the latest unicorn in the Indian higher education online space, were deciding how to best use the funds to execute on their ambitious growth plans. Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli had envisioned upGrad as an... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Esel Çekin
In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important... View Details
- 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
- September 2021
- Case
Pacific Lake and the Rise of Professional Capital in Search Funds
- September 2021 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
MAYA Capital
By: Robert F. White, Carla Larangeira and Pedro Levindo
MAYA Capital co-founders Lara Lemann and Monica Saggioro raised $41.5 million through a series of closings for their early-stage Latin American venture capital fund. The two women had met for the first time in mid-2016 when Lemann was contemplating scaling her angel... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Worldreader: Helping Readers Build a Better World
By: Marco Bertini, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic... View Details
Keywords: Subscription Model; Price; Financial Strategy; Education; Early Childhood Education; Learning; Geography; Geographic Scope; Global Range; Goals and Objectives; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Markets; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Social Issues; Strategy; Commercialization; Expansion; Segmentation; Education Industry; Africa; Asia; Latin America; Europe; North and Central America; South America
- August 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Camera IQ and the Metaverse: Building Augmented Reality Brand Experiences
By: Jill Avery and Rayan Nahas
Camera IQ, a camera marketing software company that empowered brands to create and launch augmented reality experiences (AREs) across social platforms, had just raised an additional $5 million to fund further product development and expand its marketing and sales... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality; B2B; Technology Platform; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Social Media; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Advertising Industry; United States
- August 2021
- Case
Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (A)
By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams
In May 2020, Chris Lyons, a partner at leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz receives the news that his company has reached a verbal agreement with one of Silicon Valley’s hottest social-media startups to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round, in a deal that... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (B): Kevin Hart and Clubhouse
By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams
In May 2020, Andreessen Horowitz secures an agreement with Clubhouse, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round. One of the factors that insiders saw as pivotal in the race to be Clubhouse’s VC firm of choice was Andreessen... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Apax Digital
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
The Apax Digital team faced important decisions as they contemplated raising a second fund. Apax Digital Fund I was a $1.1 billion vehicle focused on mid-market growth equity and growth buyouts in the technology sector. The fund had performed well, and the Managing... View Details
- August 2021
- Article
Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun
We provide evidence that bond fund managers misclassify their holdings, and that these misclassifications have a real and significant impact on investor capital flows. In particular, many funds report more investment grade assets than are actually held in their... View Details
- July 2021
- Case
Bessemer Venture Partners: Century Fund
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
In July of 2021, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) contemplated the future of its growth investing practice, known as “Century.” While still relatively new as a focused initiative, BVP’s growth investing already had significant momentum. The fund’s investment pace had... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Pershing Square's Pandemic Trade (A)
By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Luis M. Viceira, Dean Xu and Lucas Baker
This case explores the decision that Bill Ackman, CEO and founder of the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital, was considering in late February 2020 about hedging the exposure of the fund’s portfolio from the potential financial fallout ensuing from an extreme event like... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Fynd
By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani
Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details
- July 2021
- Article
Material Sustainability Information and Stock Price Informativeness
By: Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann and George Serafeim
As part of the SEC’s revision of Regulation S-K, many investors proposed the mandatory disclosure of sustainability information in the form of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. However, progress is contingent on collecting evidence regarding which... View Details
Keywords: Voluntary Disclosure; Accounting Standards; Sustainability; Nonfinancial Information; Corporate Social Responsibility; Stock Price Informativeness; Synchronicity; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Accountability; Stocks; Price; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Accounting; Standards