Publications

Mar 2012
Panel Discussion

Commercialization Challenges

Apr 2014
Panel Discussion

Speculation and Innovation

May 2012 (Revised October 2012)
Supplement

H-Soft (B-2): Vikram Sharma

Siddharth Kapoor, the Founder and CEO of H-Soft Mumbai, reflected on his meetings as he walked out of VC Ventures' offices in Mumbai. After a few months of intensely pitching his startup to several different investors, he finally had a term sheet in hand. Despite this... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital Term Sheet; India; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Investment; Contracts; Partners and Partnerships; India

March 2011
Teaching Note

KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy (TN)

Teaching Note for 809092. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Information Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership Style; Geographic Location; Energy Industry

11 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 11, 2007

ridiculed Babson's forecasting methods, which were informed by his belief, based on his reading of Isaac Newton, that economic "actions and reactions" (or depressions and expansions) would always be equal. But Babson was able to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 17

valuations in first financing rounds. Further econometric tests suggest that, as predicted by the theory, this effect is driven by unobservable heterogeneity, and it is more pronounced in teams that make... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 8, 2010

adult decision maker. Finally, we list a set of open questions that could be profitably addressed by future research. Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts Authors:Marco Piovesan, Antonio... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Fast Ion Battery

By: Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

John Davidson, a partner at Ware Street Capital (WSC) and a board member at Fast Ion Battery, had just received a phone call from Don Lerner at Bluelock Ventures telling him that Bluelock would not participate in the $5M bridge financing for Fast Ion Battery. Lerner's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Real Options; Term Sheets; Clean Technology; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital

Educators

16 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 16

authority. This three-level structure closely parallels that of all organized team sports. The play on the field is like the markets of capitalism, and the actions of the players are regulated by referees who enforce a set of rules... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Financing Experiments

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Find at Harvard

November 2013
Article

Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We find that VC-backed firms receiving their initial investment in hot markets are more likely to go bankrupt, but conditional on going public are valued higher on the day of their IPO, have more patents, and have more citations to their patents. Our results suggest... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Market Cycles; Financing Risk; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

2013
Working Paper

Did Bank Distress Stifle Innovation During the Great Depression?

By: Ramana Nanda and Tom Nicholas

We find a negative relationship between bank distress and the level, quality and trajectory of firm-level innovation during the Great Depression, particularly for R&D firms operating in capital intensive industries. However, we also show that because a sufficient... View Details

Keywords: Great Depression; R＆D; Bank Distress; Patents; Research and Development; Financial Crisis; Innovation and Invention; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; United States

August 2012
Article

A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending

By: Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda

We use loan-level data to study how the organizational structure of banks impacts small business lending. We find that decentralized banks-where branch managers have greater autonomy over lending decisions-give larger loans to small firms and those with "soft... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Customers; Financing and Loans; Credit; Organizational Structure; Banks and Banking; Governance Compliance; Competitive Strategy

Find at Harvard

02 Dec 2018
News

An Investor’s Guide to Climate Change: Risks and Opportunities

consumers bear the true cost of their own energy consumption. This event was part of a series of alumni events focused on climate change organized by BEI and leading up to an HBS alumni conference in the coming academic year, chaired... View Details

Keywords: Allison Webster; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

July 2012
Case

Owen's Precision Machining

By: Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

For the second time in fourteen months, Christopher Owen, the second-generation owner of Owen's Precision Machining (OPM), found himself running out of cash. Owen wondered what he was doing wrong. How much additional money would he need to raise to get OPM through the... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Cash Flow; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Problems and Challenges; Business Strategy; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts

Educators

2008
Working Paper

A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending

By: Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda

We use loan-level data to study how the organizational structure of banks impacts small business lending. We find that decentralized banks—where branch managers have greater autonomy over lending decisions—give larger loans to small firms and those with "soft... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Financing and Loans; Industry Structures; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Mexico