Publications

27 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

IPO or M&A? How Venture Capital Shapes a Startup's Future

Entrepreneurs rarely consider who will ultimately own their startups—and what that means for founders—when they court venture capitalists. New research suggests they should. A startup funded by VCs who tend to work with the same group of... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

Fast Answer

Executive compensation

Execucomp, provides compensation for S&P 1000 firms from 1992 to present. BoardEx, profiles on over 1M Directors & Senior Managers including current compensation... View Details

March 1997
Article

Transactions Costs and Capital Structure Choice: Evidence from Financially Distressed Firms

By: S. C. Gilson

This study provides evidence that transactions costs discourage debt reductions by financially distressed firms when they restructure their debt out of court. As a result, these firms remain highly leveraged and one-in-three subsequently experience financial distress.... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Capital Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Information; Finance; Business Ventures

October 2021
Article

And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Calder-Wang

With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Diversity; Gender; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets

SSRN

August 2013
Article

The Price of Diversifiable Risk in Venture Capital and Private Equity

By: Michael Ewens, Charles Jones and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

This paper explores the private equity and venture capital (VC) markets and extends the standard principal-agent problem between the investors and venture capitalist to show how it alters the interaction between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur. Since the... View Details

Keywords: Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Contracts; Investment; Competition; Agency Theory; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction; Theory; Diversification

2017
Working Paper

And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Q. Wang

With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Gender; Venture Capital; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets

SSRN

February 1997
Case

Advent of Venture Capital in Latin America, The

By: Debora L. Spar

Widely regarded as the leader in international private equity, Advent International is considering the establishment of a private equity fund in Latin America in 1996. Typically, Advent entered new private equity markets through the creation of multicountry regional... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Joint Ventures; Market Entry and Exit; Globalized Markets and Industries; Financial Services Industry; Boston; Latin America

March 1995
Article

Venture Capitalists and the Oversight of Private Firms

By: Josh Lerner

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Ownership; Business Ventures

Fast Answer

Corporate venture capital subsidiaries: how to identify

How can I find which firms have corporate venture capital subsidiaries? Capital IQ allows you to create a list of corporate venture View Details

11 Jun 2020
Blog Post

Know Your Audience - Recruiting HBS Students for Venture Capital

Director and Career Coach Katja Frey – Recruiting Relations Manager Together, Jonathan and Katja make up the Career & Professional Development team that manages relationships with venture capital View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity

July 2020
Article

The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital

By: Ramana Nanda, Sampsa Samila and Olav Sorenson

We use investment-level data to study performance persistence in venture capital (VC). Consistent with prior studies, we find that each additional IPO among a VC firm's first ten investments predicts as much as an 8% higher IPO rate on its subsequent investments,... View Details

Keywords: Performance; Monitoring; Selection; Status; Venture Capital; Performance Consistency; Investment

September 2015
Article

(UN)Tangled: Exploring the Coevolution of VC Firm Reputation and Status

By: Timothy G. Pollock, Peggy M. Lee, Kyuho Jin and Kisha Lashley

We explore the relationship between status and reputation, examining how its dynamics change over time as these two intangible assets coevolve and how reputation and status are influenced by participation in highly visible events. Using a sample of more than 400... View Details

Keywords: Underpricing; Intangible Assets; New Firms; Status and Position; Reputation; Venture Capital; Initial Public Offering

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11 May 2021
Blog Post

IPO or M&A? How Venture Capital Shapes a Startup's Future

Entrepreneurs rarely consider who will ultimately own their startups—and what that means for founders—when they court venture capitalists. New research suggests they should. A startup funded by VCs who tend to work with the same group of... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity

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

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Angel Investors; Organization Design; Voting; Group Decision-making; Information; Strategy; Organizations; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Financing and Loans

March 1998 (Revised March 2005)
Case

ONSET Ventures

By: Michael J. Roberts and Nicole Tempest

ONSET Ventures, is a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage start-ups. Describes the principles and strategies the firm has developed over its life. Also presents an in-depth discussion of one of the seed-stage companies ONSET has been incubating. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Financing and Loans