Publications

Read Now

January 1995
Background Note

A Note on Distribution of Venture Investments

By: Josh Lerner

Venture capitalists typically exit investments by distributing shares to investors. These transfers pose challenges for these investors. Predictions and evidence about the behavior of stock prices of firms around the time of these distributions are presented. View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Venture Capital; Stocks; Investment; Price

27 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Creating the Minority Renaissance for Venture Capital: Interview with Henri Pierre-Jacques and Jarrid Tingle, Managing Partners at Harlem Capital

minorities are able to get on and stay on the path to senior leadership, Tingle and Pierre-Jacques connected with friends who shared their passion for investing. Their group of six, including co-founder and current Harlem Capital View Details

January 2020
Article

How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?

By: Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev

We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure, post-investment value-added, exits, internal firm organization, and relationships... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Value Creation; Capital Structure; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making

January 2022
Technical Note

Introduction to Capital Structure Analytics

By: Samuel Antill and Ted Berk

This technical note provides an overview of key analytical approaches that are useful in assessing the appropriateness of a firm’s capital structure and funding plan. This note introduces basic quantitative tools and metrics that are commonly used as inputs to this... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Business Plan; Forecasting and Prediction; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Financial Liquidity; Financial Management; Financing and Loans

February 2022
Case

NFX Capital and Moov Technologies

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller

In July 2019, James Currier, a general partner at San Francisco-based NFX Ventures, was considering a seed stage investment of $1.5 million in Moov Technologies, a B2B marketplace for used industrial equipment. NFX was a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Network Effects; Marketplace Matching; Digital Platforms; Market Design; Applications and Software; Semiconductor Industry; Financial Services Industry; San Francisco

October 1998
Case

Farallon Capital Management: Risk Arbitrage (C)

By: Andre F. Perold and Robert Howard

Farallon Capital Management, an investment firm that specializes in risk arbitrage, has taken significant long and short positions in MCI Communications and British Telecommunications, respectively, in the belief that the proposed merger of these firms will be... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Equity; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Institutions; Risk Management; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry

05 Mar 2015
Video

EiR Rudina Seseri, partner, Fairhaven Capital

28 Feb 2020
News

Filling the White Space

At Able Partners, Amanda Eilian (MBA 2006) and Lisa Blau (MBA 2003) have focused primarily on women-led wellness companies, including businesses such as Goop, Moon Juice, and Daily Harvest. Now the New York–based investment firm has turned its attention to Compass... View Details

Keywords: venture capital; pharmaceutical research; innovative investing

14 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Creating the Minority Renaissance for Venture Capital: Interview with Henri Pierre-Jacques and Jarrid Tingle, Managing Partners at Harlem Capital

minorities are able to get on and stay on the path to senior leadership, Tingle and Pierre-Jacques connected with friends who shared their passion for investing. Their group of six, including co-founder and current Harlem Capital View Details

Web

Courses - Private Capital Project

Courses Courses Executive Education Courses Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital The Foundations of Private Equity and Venture View Details

November 2000 (Revised January 2001)
Case

Commercial Capital SA (A)

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Laure Mougeot Stroock

Keywords: Agribusiness; Privatization; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; Greece; Romania

02 Jun 2017
News

Venture capital’s gender gap is costly for firms and the economy

Aug 2012
Conference Presentation

When Does the Glue of Social Ties Dissolve: Syndication Ties and Performance Clues in Withdrawals from Venture Capital Syndicates

By: Pavel Ivanov Zhelyazkov

September 2018 (Revised August 2021)
Teaching Note

Blackstone at Age 30 and Blackstone at 35

By: Josh Lerner

This teaching note is meant to guide in the instruction of HBS No. 316-013 "Blackstone at 30" case. It examines the process of institutionalization and scaling in private equity and alternative investments more generally, looking specifically at how Blackstone's size... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Blackstone; Alternative Assets; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Public Ownership; Cost vs Benefits; Financial Services Industry

October 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Farallon Capital Management: Risk Arbitrage (A)

By: Andre F. Perold and Robert Howard

Farallon Capital Management, an investment firm that specializes in risk arbitrage, has taken significant long and short positions in MCI Communications and British Telecommunications, respectively, in the belief that the proposed merger of these firms will be... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital; Capital Markets; Investment; Management; Risk Management; Strategy; Financial Services Industry

October 2010 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Bessemer Trust: Guardians of Capital

By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen

Henry Phipps, Jr. made his fortune in the steel industry alongside one of America's most celebrated entrepreneurs—Andrew Carnegie. His wealth was administered in the form of trusts, which he hoped would provide a stream of income for his family and their descendants... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Asset Management; Family Business; Business History; Income; Entrepreneurship; Capital; United States

2004
Case

Neology: Embedded Opportunities in the RFID Space (A)

By: Roberto Charvel and Atul Joshi

Neology was a pioneer in the RFID industry that was able to attract U.S. Army contracts and secure financing by creating a holding company in the U.S., while being a Mexican company. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital; Emerging Market; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Technology

2017
Article

New Venture Milestones and the First Female Board Member

By: Alicia DeSantola, Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Battilana

We explore the antecedents of the addition of the first woman to the boards of directors of entrepreneurial ventures. Building on research on resource dependency, we propose that new ventures are most likely to add the first woman to their boards at three developmental... View Details

Keywords: Boards Of Directors; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Diversity; Technology Industry; United States