Publications

October 2013
Article

Corporate Venturing

By: Josh Lerner

For decades, large companies have been wary of corporate venturing. But as R&D organizations face pressure to rein in costs and produce results, companies are investing in promising start-ups to gain knowledge and agility. The logic of corporate venturing is... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Knowledge Acquisition; Corporate Strategy; Research and Development; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

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August 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Kmart and ESL Investments (A)

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah Abbott

A major bankrupt retailer is poised to emerge from Chapter 11. Two activist hedge funds ("vulture investors") will own over 50% of reorganized Kmart's common stock, based on prior investments in Kmart's debt claims, and an infusion of new equity financing. The Chapter... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Investment Activism; Valuation; Financial Services Industry; Retail Industry; United States

03 Jun 2021
Blog Post

HBS Pilots First Impact Investing Fund

Reserve Bank of Boston found the average net worth of a white family was $250,000, compared with $2,700 for "Other Hispanic" and $8 for Black (source: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, The Color of Wealth, 2015). To address growing inequality, the fund aims to invest... View Details

Arjun Goyal

Dr. Arjun Goyal is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vida Ventures, a leading US-based life sciences venture capital firm with a ~$1.8 billion in AUM. Arjun focuses on creating and investing in companies that translate groundbreaking... View Details

Keywords: Finance

19 Aug 2016
News

Lending a Hand to Small Businesses in Emerging Markets

the more sophisticated due diligence of a venture capital deal. “It’s asking a lot of the same questions that you would try to tease out in a conversation with someone. Are they reliable? Are they confident? Are they optimistic?” says... View Details

01 Dec 2006
News

Faculty Research Online From HBS Working Knowledge

How Europe Wrote the Rules of Global Finance After decades of liberalization, controls on cross-border capital movements are again being examined by financial institutions, governments, and policymakers around the globe. Associate... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Jun 2006
News

HBS Annual Report Details Strong Financial Growth

fellowships. On the operating expense side, employee compensation represented more than half of all expenditures, increasing 10 percent to $153 million. This growth reflected a 29.5 percent University-wide increase in employee health-care and pension benefits. View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

25 Feb 2020
News

Why Layoffs are a Losing Strategy

Sandra Sucher (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva; Getty Images) Sandra Sucher (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva; Getty Images) After studying mass layoffs for a decade, Professor Sandra Sucher has seen the detrimental effects and advises against this now-common tactic for workforce... View Details

Keywords: April White; Telecommunications; Information

04 Nov 2013
News

The 'LinkedIn for the Military' Commemorates Its One-Year Anniversary By Raising $5 Million

Keywords: military

01 Jun 2003
News

Rock Gift to Support Entrepreneurial Studies

those efforts both now and for the future.” Over the years, Rock, considered a founding father of the venture capital industry, helped form numerous start–ups that went on to become 20th–century success stories, including Intel, Teledyne,... View Details

Keywords: Jeffrey L. Cruikshank; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

February 1999 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Car Wash Partners, Inc.

By: Paul A. Gompers

Examines the investment decision of Cabot Brown and Bill Burgin, two venture capitalists, to finance Car Wash Partners (CWP). CWP intends to purchase automatic car washes around the country. Investment strategy and deal structuring are discussed. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; Auto Industry; Service Industry

Forthcoming
Article

Catching Outliers: Committee Voting and the Limits of Consensus When Financing Innovation

By: Andrey Malenko, Ramana Nanda, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Savitar Sundaresan

We document that investment committees of major VCs use a voting rule where one partner `championing' an early-stage investment is sufficient to invest. Their stated reason for this rule is to `catch outliers'. The same VCs use a more conventional `majority' rule for... View Details

Keywords: Optimal Voting Rules; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making; Voting

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January 2020
Teaching Note

Enfoca: Private Equity in Peru

By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu

Teaching Note for HBS No. 219-030. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Emerging Markets; Capital Markets; Transition; Strategy; Peru

November 2000
Case

UPromise

By: Michael J. Roberts and William A. Sahlman

Describes the development of UPromise, a company that has developed a loyalty program through which corporate partners can contribute to funds that finance the education of consumers' children. Presents the accomplishments prior to the company's second round of... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Markets; Programs

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June 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Hostile Bid for Red October, The

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Alan Bigman

Manatep Bank, a Russian investment bank, has just announced the country's first hostile tender offer for Red October, a confectionery company located in Moscow. As the chief financial officer of the target company, Yuri Yegorov must decide how to respond, how much his... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Cash; Governance Controls; Financial Condition; Investment Banking; Financial Markets; Trade; Valuation; Financial Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Moscow

October 2018
Case

Zenefits Board of Directors (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

In early 2018, the time seemed right for Zenefits investor and director Lars Dalgaard to reflect on whether Zenefits had the right board of directors to shepherd the company through its next stages of growth. For the company whose name combined the words “benefits,”... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; California

September 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and Mala Kaul

The Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System case presents one home healthcare organization's efforts to use telemonitoring to improve the quality of care provided to at-risk patients who were discharged from hospitals and needed home care. After two years of... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Cost vs Benefits; Risk Management; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry