Publications

April 2024
Supplement

Recycle & Re-Match: The Future of Soccer Turfs

By: George Serafeim

April 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

The Engine

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Jim Matheson, Fiona Murray and Nicholas Christman

The Engine, a venture capital firm founded by MIT to fill a gap in the technology funding landscape by commercializing breakthrough science and technology. Led by managing partner and CEO Katie Rae, the Engine's unique approach involved an unusually longer fund life,... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Services Industry

April 2024
Supplement

Cyrus 3.0: Turning a Traditional Business Model on Its Head (B)

By: James Heskett

The objective of improved work-life balance is achieved. However, it prompts a discussion of whether management should take on special events during what is now a long weekend in order to improve the bottom line even more. The case raises questions about other... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Work-Life Balance; Strategic Planning; Profit

April 2024
Case

Cyrus: Turning a Traditional Business Model on Its Head (A)

By: James Heskett

The loss of the lease at their Michelin-starred Cyrus 1.0 in Sonoma County, California gives the partners an opportunity to shut down and rework a “broken” business model, one with labor intensive experiences six or seven nights a week, high burnout, high... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Retention; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leasing; Work-Life Balance; Strategic Planning; Loss; Profit; Working Conditions; California

April 2024
Article

A Machine Learning Algorithm Predicting Risk of Dilating VUR among Infants with Hydronephrosis Using UTD Classification

By: Hsin-Hsiao Scott Wang, Michael Lingzhi Li, Dylan Cahill, John Panagides, Tanya Logvinenko, Jeanne Chow and Caleb Nelson

Backgrounds: Urinary Tract Dilation (UTD) classification has been designed to be a more objective grading system to evaluate antenatal and post-natal UTD. Due to unclear association between UTD classifications to specific anomalies such as vesico-ureteral reflux (VUR),... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Testing and Trials; AI and Machine Learning; Health Industry

April 2024
Article

Demand-and-Supply Imbalance Risk and Long-Term Swap Spreads

By: Samuel G. Hanson, Aytek Malkhozov and Gyuri Venter

We develop and test a model in which swap spreads are determined by end users' demand for and constrained intermediaries’ supply of long-term interest rate swaps. Swap spreads reflect compensation both for using scarce intermediary capital and for bearing convergence... View Details

Keywords: Swap Spreads; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Interest Rates; Risk and Uncertainty; Volatility

April 2024
Teaching Note

eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell

The case opens in March 2023, as Sten van der Ham and Jaap Maljers, CEO and co-founder of eBee, an electric bike (e-bike) company in Africa, are contemplating the different avenues for growth and path to profitability for the young and ambitious company. In 2023, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Value Creation; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Product Marketing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Bicycle Industry; Africa; Kenya

April–May 2024
Article

Gone with the Big Data: Institutional Lender Demand for Private Information

By: Jung Koo Kang

I explore whether big-data sources can crowd out the value of private information acquired through lending relationships. Institutional lenders have been shown to exploit their access to borrowers’ private information by trading on it in financial markets. As a shock... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Markets; Value; Knowledge Dissemination; Financing and Loans

SSRN

March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Angel City Football Club: Scoring a New Model

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller

In January 2024, Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman, and Natalie Portman, the founders of Angel City Football Club (ACFC) were developing the club’s first three-year strategic plan. Founded in 2020, ACFC had a star-studded investor group, including Portman and celebrities such... View Details

Keywords: Sports; Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Brands and Branding; Venture Capital; Business Model; Corporate Strategy; Digital Marketing; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles

March 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Miami's Climate Tech Potential (A): The State of Play

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Miami-Dade County led the work to get South Florida designated a national climate resilience tech hub, the only one of 31 focused on climate change, an urgent major issue for the region in light of global warming and sea level rise. Venture capitalists saw the... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Climate; Entrepreneur; Development; Startup; Climate Change; Venture Capital; Investment; Entrepreneurship; Green Technology; Government Administration; City; Miami

March 2024
Case

ixigo

By: Ranjay Gulati and Rachna Tahilyani

Ixigo is India’s second-largest online travel aggregator (OTA) and the market leader among private train OTAs. It has overcome numerous near-death crises to emerge as a customer-centric, profitable firm. It aspires to become the leading OTA in the next billion Internet... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Profit; Growth and Development; Product Positioning; Travel Industry; India

March 2024
Case

Biomanufacturing Decentralization by Stämm

By: Paul A. Gompers, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, cousins Llamazares and D’Alvia founded Stämm, a startup based on the idea of decentralizing biomanufacturing processes and downsizing biotech facilities. After raising its seed and series A rounds, and while finalizing its series B round in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Technological Innovation; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Latin America; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires

March 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Amperity: First-Party Data at a Crossroads

By: Elie Ofek, Hema Yoganarasimhan and Alexis Lefort

In the summer of 2023, Amperity management was facing a critical decision on its future direction. Given the dramatic changes occurring within the digital advertising ecosystem, as concerns over consumer privacy placed limits on the ability to engage in third-party... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Business Strategy; Digital Marketing; Price; Product; Business or Company Management; Advertising Industry

March 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Kashat: Navigating the Uncertainties of the Egyptian Fintech Market

By: Paul A. Gompers and Ahmed Dahawy

Karim Nour, the founder of Kashat, an Egyptian nano-lending fintech company, is contemplating how to manage the growth of his startup. Over the summer of 2022, Kashat's loan disbursements had grown by nearly 40%, fueled by macroeconomic instability in Egypt. However,... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Model; Developing Countries and Economies; Acquisition; Business Exit or Shutdown; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Financing and Loans; Capital; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Egypt

March 2024
Case

Ava DuVernay's Array: Disrupting the Hollywood Film Industry

By: Anita Elberse and Morgan Brewton-Johnson

In February 2023 acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay is filming her latest movie, Origin, a daring adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. With Origin, DuVernay is pioneering a method to finance the endeavor—through a combination of... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Intellectual Property; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

March 2024
Case

Nomad: A License to Bank

By: Paul A. Gompers and Pedro Levindo

In late 2023, Lucas Vargas, CEO and co-founder of Nomad, a fintech that offered financial services in the United States for Brazilian residents, had to decide what to do to ensure the company’s continued expansion. Nomad launched its first product, a U.S. digital bank... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Appropriate Entrepreneurship? The Rise of China and the Developing World

By: Josh Lerner, Junxi Liu, Jacob Moscona and David Yang

Global innovation and entrepreneurship has traditionally been dominated by a handful of high-income countries, especially the US. This paper investigates the international consequences of the rise of a new hub for innovation, focusing on the dramatic growth of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Economic Growth; China

March 2024
Case

East Rock Capital: 'Talent Is the Best Asset Class'

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Izzy Yeoh

Adam Shapiro and Graham Duncan launched East Rock Capital, LLC in 2006 with a seed investment from Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Lennar Corporation. East Rock managed long-term assets for high-net-worth families, primarily working with external managers who had... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Hiring; HNW Products And Services; Recruiting; Hedge Funds; Wealth Management; Asset Management; Private Equity; Financial Institutions; Marketing Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 2024
Article

Medicare Price Negotiation and Pharmaceutical Innovation Following the Inflation Reduction Act

By: Matthew Vogel, Pragya Kakani, Amitabh Chandra and Rena M. Conti

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requires Medicare to negotiate lower prices for some medicines with high Medicare spending. Using historical data from public and proprietary sources to apply the IRA's negotiation criteria retrospectively, we identify all drugs that... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Government Legislation; Health Care and Treatment; Negotiation; Price; Pharmaceutical Industry

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