Publications

Find at Harvard

August 2022
Supplement

Broadway Angels (2022)

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In late June of 2022, Sonja Perkins, co-founder of Broadway Angels, contemplated the group’s future. She and her co-founders, Jennifer Fonstad, and Magdalena Yesil, started the group to gather together the most successful and powerful women in venture capital and... View Details

Keywords: Gender Equity; Impact; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Mission and Purpose; Groups and Teams; Financial Services Industry

January 2014
Technical Note

A Note on Funding Digital Innovation Startups

By: Karim Lakhani, Michael Norris and Andrew Otazo

This note provides information on the state of startup financing in Silicon Valley in 2013. It details different avenues startups have to raise funding, including venture capital, corporate venture capital, angel investors, incubators, and crowdfunding. View Details

Keywords: Startup; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Angel Investors; Accelerator; Crowdfunding; Silicon Valley; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; California

September 2001
Background Note

Financial Reporting Environment, The

By: Paul M. Healy, Amy P. Hutton, Robert S. Kaplan and Krishna G. Palepu

Provides a framework for understanding the role of financial reporting and various intermediaries as mechanisms for reducing both adverse selection and moral hazard problems in capital markets. Financial reports reduce adverse selection by providing basic information... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Capital Markets; Venture Capital; Corporate Disclosure; Conflict of Interests

August 2010 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Urban Water Partners (A)

By: Karthik Ramanna, George Serafeim and Aldo Sesia

The case explores a new business venture to bring clean water to residents of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who otherwise cannot afford it. Management has enough money to get the company through August 2010 but needs more capital thereafter. An HBS alumnus is interested in... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Performance Evaluation; Dar es Salaam; Massachusetts

March 2025
Case

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane

This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely... View Details

20 Feb 2020
Blog Post

Black Visionary Leadership and Redefining What's Possible

(DEI) and I’m the co-president of AASU. After we graduate, we’re going to work in those spaces in finance and tech—I’m going into Venture Capital (VC) at Goldman Sachs, and Tyler is heading to Facebook. The... View Details

January 2023
Case

Proday: Calling the Right Play

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

Sarah Kunst knew the elements of a successful startup from her tenure at venture capital firms. In April 2018, however, her own app – Proday, a home fitness platform featuring exercises filmed by professional sports stars – was floundering. Kunst theorized that... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Entrepreneurship; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Product Launch; Social Marketing; Failure; Sports; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States

Dante Roscini holds the Professor of Management Practice Chair endowed by the MBA Class of 1952 at Harvard Business School. He joined the faculty in 2008 after a two-decades-long career in finance. He currently teaches the course Business, Government, and the... View Details

2003
Chapter

Equity Financing

By: Paul Gompers and Joshua Lerner

Equity financing for entrepreneurial firms has attracted increasing attention in both the popular press and academic literature. The dramatic growth in the venture capital industry in the past two decades has been accompanied by new academic research that explores... View Details

Keywords: Angel Investors; Financing and Loans; Equity; Venture Capital; Business Startups

18 Sep 2014
News

Entrepreneurs anonymous

2024
Working Paper

Priors, Experiments, Learning and Persuasion in (Bayesian) Entrepreneurial Finance

By: Ramana Nanda

At the heart of entrepreneurial finance lies a persuasion challenge: regardless of the strength of an entrepreneur’s belief in the potential of their idea, they typically need to convince investors to provide the financial capital required for its... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Communication Intention and Meaning; Prejudice and Bias

SSRN

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14 Feb 2018
Blog Post

Meet HBS Leadership Fellows: Verdell Walker, Sesame Workshop

the strategic planning and venture capital team. I also support the work of the International Social Impact group, which produces early education content through mass media and targeted initiatives to... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

27 Jan 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Labor Regulations and European Private Equity

Keywords: by Ant Bozkaya & William R. Kerr

30 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Not Slowing VC Investment

the end of the year. Venture funding in a socially distanced world Discouraged entrepreneurs shouldn’t put away their pitch decks yet. For one thing, funding commitments are still outpacing those of past periods of economic distress, the... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services; Banking

December 2005 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Cynthia Fisher and the Rearing of ViaCell

By: Robert F. Higgins, Richard G. Hamermesh and Ingrid Vargas

Describes the start up of Viacord, a Boston-based medical services firm founded by Cynthia Fisher (HBS MBA) in 1993. Told from Fisher's perspective, the entrepreneur details the conceptualization and launch of the business and the many obstacles and expenses faced in... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Service Industry; Health Industry; Boston