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VC
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- October 2018
- Case
Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance
By: Ramana Nanda, Raffaella Sadun and Olivia Hull
Accomplice, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, is raising its second fund in November 2017. Since 2009, the firm has followed a seed-led investment model, investing in tech companies at the earliest stages, often when products and business models are... View Details
Keywords: Early Stage Finance; Seed Finance; Scouts; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts; Boston; Cambridge; United States
- July 2018 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
RunKeeper
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
The case examines the focus of an early stage company and how venture capital can distort a founder’s view. It encompasses issues such as financing, understanding the founders’ definition of success/failure, defining and pivoting a business model, and determining the... View Details
- July–August 2018
- Article
The Other Diversity Dividend
By: Paul Gompers and Silpa Kovvali
Researchers have struggled to establish a causal relationship between diversity and financial performance—especially at large companies, where decision rights and incentives can be murky, and the effects of any given choice can be tough to pin down. So the authors... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Scaling Swagbucks (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
In early 2014, Chuck Davis (HBS '86) has joined Swagbucks as its first professional CEO to scale a successful and profitable brand promotion and consumer research business. Davis came into the job while serving as a venture partner at TCV, a growth stage VC firm,... View Details
Keywords: Loyalty Management; Scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry
- June 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
CJ E&M: KCON Goes Global
By: Elie Ofek and Michael Norris
In January of 2017, CJ Entertainment & Media (E&M) proudly announced that it will be holding its first ever KCON in Mexico City just two months later. CJ Group Chairman Jay Lee and Vice Chairwoman Miky Lee are pleased at the progress that KCON, a Korean-oriented music... View Details
- 2017
- Simulation
Global Collaboration Simulation: Tip of the Iceberg
By: Tsedal Neeley
This online simulation teaches students about the difficulties in cross-cultural communication and managing global teams. Communicating via chat, teams of 4 or 5 students race against the clock to prepare a VC presentation. Students are assigned the role of a native... View Details
- Working Paper
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
- 2016
- Article
Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners
By: Andy Wu
We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI
By: Jill Avery, Asis Martinez Jerez and Thomas Steenburgh
HubSpot, a web marketing startup selling inbound marketing software to small- and medium-sized businesses, is under pressure from its venture capital partners to rapidly acquire new customers and to maintain a low level of customer churn. The B2B SaaS company is in the... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Mattermark
By: Jeffrey Bussgang and Annelena Lobb
Mattermark, a software-as-a-service company that sold software allowing companies to access financial information about privately-held companies and startups, was at a turning point. CEO Danielle Morrill had to allocate investment funding from a Series A round. She... View Details
- Fall 2015
- Article
Doing Well by Doing Good? Community Development Venture Capital
By: Josh Lerner and Anna Kovner
This paper examines the investments and performance of community development venture capital (CDVC). We find substantial differences between CDVC and traditional venture capital (VC) investments: CDVC investments are far more likely to be in nonmetropolitan regions and... View Details
- 2015
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Entrepreneurship Reading: Partnering with Venture Capitalists
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Michael J. Roberts
This reading takes a deep look at the venture capital (VC) industry in the United States. VCs have a unique perspective on opportunity evaluation, deal structure, new venture support, and exit strategy. Their work at all stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle offers... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
AltSchool: School Reimagined
By: John J-H Kim, Kyla Wilkes and Christine S. An
Max Ventilla and his team launches in 2013 AltSchool, a new network of tech-savvy independent K-8 "micro-schools." AltSchool is born out of Ventilla's frustration with the education options available for his young daughter. During his search, Ventilla comes to the... View Details
Keywords: Education Technology; School Models; Product Development; Entrepreneurship; Talent Development And Retention; Social Impact Investment; Information Technology; Business Model; Education; Business Startups; Customization and Personalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States
- 2014
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Entrepreneurship Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and James McQuade
"Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures" introduces students to the key issues involved in the financing of entrepreneurial enterprises. The Reading begins by examining how business models shape external financing requirements. It then contrasts the choice to bootstrap... View Details
- Aug 2014
- Conference Presentation
After the Break-Up: The Relational and Reputational Consequences of Withdrawals from VC Syndicates
By: Ranjay Gulati and Pavel Zhelyazkov
- June 2014
- Teaching Note
Andreessen Horowitz
By: Thomas Eisenmann
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details
- June 2014
- Case
Stock Options at Celia-Check
By: Brian Hall, Andrew Wasynczuk and Karen Huang
Describes issues facing three young founders of a high-tech start-up, including hiring an experienced CEO and negotiating with a potential VC investor. Focuses on the incentive and compensation aspects of negotiating with job candidates (e.g., what percentage of the... View Details
- January 2014
- Case
Maricopa, Inc.: Finding the Right Treatment for Growth
The founders of Maricopa, Inc., a startup that sold proprietary hair-care products directly to salons, were preparing a board presentation to address the young company's inability to meet financial projections. While the products had caught on with customers, the... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Andreessen Horowitz
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Liz Kind
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details
- 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