Publications

March 2015
Case

BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm

By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White

BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.

In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Accelerator; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Strategy

February 2004 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Orchid Partners: A Venture Capital Start-up

By: Myra M. Hart and Kristin Lieb

The development of a new venture partnership and the challenges associated with raising its first fund are chronicled. The decision to focus on early-stage investments, the determination of the appropriate size of the fund, the fund-raising process, and the steps in... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Investment; Motivation and Incentives; Financing and Loans; Personal Development and Career

July 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Narayana Murthy and Compassionate Capitalism

By: William W. George, Shailendra Jit Singh and Andrew N. McLean

Narayana Murthy's roles at Infosys Technologies--as a co-founder, longtime CEO, and nonexecutive chairman and chief mentor--has been marked by explosive growth, demanding management challenges, and widely lauded company leadership. His personal leadership philosophy... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Economic Systems; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Biography; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Information Technology Industry; India

September 2024
Case

TechEnergy Ventures: Innovating Through Corporate Venture Capital

By: Rebecca Karp and Lena Duchene

This case examines TechEnergy Ventures, the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of the Techint Group, and its role in scaling innovation within the energy sector. Founded in 2021, TechEnergy Ventures operates with a mandate to invest in disruptive technologies to... View Details

20 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Changing the Face of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital at Harlem Capital

founders to know there are people who look like them willing to invest in and support them, and for the next generation to know that they too can be successful in VC.” The Internship Funnel As Harlem Capital View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Venture Capital / Private Equity

July 2022
Case

Yinglan Tan: Scaling a Venture Capital Firm in Southeast Asia

By: Josh Lerner and Richard Zhu

Yinglan Tan considered the future of his young Singapore-based venture capital firm. On the one hand, the intuition that was behind the initial creation of Insignia in 2017 had been proven correct. The venture capital market in Southeast Asia had grown rapidly, driven... View Details

Keywords: E-commerce; Scalability; Globalized Markets and Industries; Venture Capital; International Finance; Growth and Development; Expansion

26 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

How Women Can Get More Venture Capital

realistic. They need to engage the investors in the excitement of the business concept, but they also need to convey their commitment to the enterprise. The good news is that Chase and Danielson did make a compelling case, were able to allay investors' fears, and View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark & Martha Lagace

23 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

The Future of the Venture Capital Cycle

run: firms that persist in such a strategy will eventually achieve low returns and be unable to raise follow-on funds. The types of factors that will determine the long-run, steady-state supply of venture View Details

Keywords: by Paul A. Gompers & Josh Lerner; Financial Services

28 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Capital Rules: The Tensions of Global Finance

What fuels a global economy? Certainly the easy flow of capital across national boundaries would seem near the top of the list. But financial globalization is not an on/off switch, notes Professor Rawi Abdelal. Different countries and... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi Abdelal

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

The book Capitalism at Risk first appeared in 2011. The problems it identified with social inequality, global trade strife, and environmental degradation have only accelerated by 2020. The new edition of View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Oct 2019
News

Venturing Away from Venture Capital

Illustration by Peter Arkle Illustration by Peter Arkle Sandra Oh Lin (MBA 2003) has raised enough venture capital for now, thank you very much. Lin is the founder and CEO of KiwiCo, which designs and... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand

January 2020
Teaching Note

PROOF: Pro Rata Opportunity Fund

By: Josh Lerner, Shai Bernstein and Terrence Shu

This is a teaching note meant to accompany "PROOF: Pro Rata Opportunity Fund," HBS Case No. 820-030. View Details

Keywords: Finance; Venture Capital; Fund Management; Fund Raising; Investing; Investment Banking; Limited Partners

2014
Article

Executive Compensation and Human Capital Investments Through Industry Selection

By: Boris Groysberg and Eric Lin

We use proprietary data capturing compensation levels of executives placed by a global search firm to investigate how executives evaluate rewards and risks of human capital investment choices. Our findings suggest that more isolated industries with lower opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career

Register to Read

Program

Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital

Summary Raising private capital can be a daunting process, especially for new entrants in the sector. Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital delves into the... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance

November 2013
Case

Canyon-Agassi Investing in Charter Schools

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas, Nicole Shomair, Vernon Beckford and Lisa Strope

After an unusual round of doubles in May 2011, real estate investor Bobby Turner, Managing Partner, Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund (CACSFF) and Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, found himself at a loss for words. Turner was... View Details

Keywords: Charter Schools; Real Estate; Fund Raising; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Real Estate Industry; United States

January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details

04 Nov 2013
News

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

Keywords: military

February 2024
Case

Vespucci Partners: The New World of Venture Capital in Hungary

By: Paul A. Gompers, Tonia Labruyere and Emilie Billaud

Julia Sohajda was the young, female founding partner of the Hungarian VC firm Vespucci Partners, which focused on investing at seed stage into Hungarian deep tech startups and prepare them for a launch in the U.S market. Vespucci's first fund had largely been comprised... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Startups; Investment Funds; Financing and Loans; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Hungary; United States