Publications

September 2013
Article

Combining Banking with Private Equity Investing

By: Lily H. Fang, Victoria Ivashina and Josh Lerner

Bank-affiliated private equity groups account for 30% of all private equity investments. Their market share is highest during peaks of the private equity market, when the parent banks arrange more debt financing for in-house transactions yet have the lowest exposure to... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

SSRN

January 2024
Article

Investing with the Government: A Field Experiment in China

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Bo Li and Ernest Liu

We study the demand for government participation in China’s venture capital and private equity market. We conduct a large-scale, non-deceptive field experiment in collaboration with the leading industry service provider, through which we survey both capital investors... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Business and Government Relations; Entrepreneurship; China

March 2018 (Revised April 2018)
Supplement

1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture (B)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Ramana Nanda

It was March 2018. Should proposed U.S. solar tariffs keep U.S.-based 1366 CEO Frank van Mierlo from starting up his 1st full-scale manufacturing plant overseas? View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Finance; Intellectual Property; Trade; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Energy Industry; United States; China; Korean Peninsula

September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Icahn Enterprises: Ponzi Scheme or Sound Investment

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber

Icahn Enterprises, a publicly traded limited partnership founded and operated by famed activist investor Carl Icahn, had earned above market returns for over a decade. Between 2018 and early 2023, it had a compound annual return of 31%. Icahn invested in undervalued... View Details

Keywords: Stock Shares; Investment Return; Business Model; Valuation; Financial Services Industry

30 Nov 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

Keywords: by Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

30 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

Venture Investors Prefer Funding Handsome Men

venture funding, up from 4 percent in 2004, according to data from PitchBook.) Murray is Kearney's thesis adviser. Huang, whom Brooks met in the initial stages of their research, studies the role of "gut feel" in View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

January 2017 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Carmichael Roberts: To Create a Private Equity Firm?

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth J. Cooper

Carmichael Roberts, a rare African-American venture capitalist, considered leaving his general partnership in a private equity firm near Boston and setting up his own in 2015. He weighed whether the timing was right, with the economy still not fully recovered from the... View Details

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Around the World of Entrepreneurial Ventures

complexity that is astonishing, said Sahlman. The International Context According to Kuemmerle, there is one central question guiding his IEF research: how do entrepreneurial managers, and those who finance them, make sensible resource acquisition and View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

August 2021
Case

BYJU’S: EdTech Giant Investing in Brick and Mortar

By: John J-H Kim and Rachna Tahilyani

The founder and CEO of BYJU’S, India’s largest edtech firm and one of the world’s most valuable edtech companies, is considering acquiring Aakash Educational Services (Aakash), one of India’s largest brick-and-mortar test-prep firms, for $1 billion. Is this a good... View Details

Keywords: Edtech; Business Strategy; Diversification; Investment; Acquisition; Education Industry; Asia; India; United States

04 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Diversity Boosts Profits in Venture Capital Firms

information on where each person went to school from LinkedIn. Birds of a feather invest together The information showed that the venture capital world is incredibly homogenous, consisting mostly of white... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services

March 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Identifying and Realizing Investments in Eastern Europe (A)

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Robert E. Kennedy and Laure Mougeot Strook

A Greek milling firm wants to invest in Eastern Europe. The case explores the firm's search strategy and its due diligence process after a potential investment, and considers how the company should structure its bid. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Financial Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe

18 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Big Deals: Financing Large-Scale Investments

Pick up most business magazines these days and you'll probably find an article on some venture capital transaction involving millions of dollars. From HBS Associate Professor Benjamin Esty's perspective, however, these deals are small... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

13 Oct 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

Keywords: by Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend, and Yulia Zhestkova; Financial Services

23 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

In Venture Capital, Birds of a Feather Lose Money Together

like-mindedness lead to narrow decision-making, to the detriment of the deal? Working with people similar to yourself can lead to poor decisions.Photo: iStockPhoto The research began with a database of 3,510 individual venture capitalists... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

June 2021
Article

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

By: Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

Investor-driven "short-termism" is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered—rising levels of repurchases and dividends—is incomplete and... View Details

Keywords: Short-termism; EU; Payout Policy; Innovation; Investment; Corporate Governance; Investment Return; Acquisition; European Union

SSRN

December 2024
Case

Core Innovation Capital: Investing in Fintech for Good

By: Ray Kluender, Natalia Rigol, Benjamin Roth and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2017, Arjan Schütte, founder of Core Innovation Capital, faced a decision on whether to invest in Hugo Insurance, an auto insurance startup. Core, an early-stage social impact VC firm, focused on “fintech for good,” by investing in financial services for low- to... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Venture Capital; Social Entrepreneurship; Insurance; Measurement and Metrics; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Insurance Industry; United States

August 2012 (Revised July 2025)
Module Note

Evaluating the Viability of Innovative Technology-Commercializing Ventures

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

This case enables evaluation of innovative health care technologies by those who are not an expert in the technology by introduction of a framework for evaluating technology - commercializing innovation. It is the introductory case for the first of four modules in a... View Details

Keywords: Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry