Publications

17 Apr 2024
Blog Post

New Venture Competition 2024: Business and Environment Ventures

The New Venture Competition is an annual competition sponsored by the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Initiative open to all students and alumni who are launching new business and social impact ventures. This year,... View Details

19 Oct 2023
Blog Post

New Venture Competition 2023: Business and Environment Ventures

The New Venture Competition is an annual competition sponsored by the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Initiative open to all students and alumni who are launching new business and social impact ventures. This year,... View Details

2004
Book

Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital

By: Amar Bhidé

Academics and practitioners readily admit the importance of entrepreneurs for the wealth of nations. However, the relationship between the economic and social environment, entrepreneurship and value creation is not yet well understood. Moreover, at the micro-level, the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Corporate Finance

October 2013 (Revised April 2018)
Technical Note

Non-Equity Financing for Entrepreneurial Ventures

By: Joan Farre-Mensa, Ramana Nanda and Piyush Jain

Young, and particularly high-growth ventures often need to raise significant external finance, since their internal cash flow is usually insufficient to support the investments needed to grow. Although raising equity from venture capital or angel investors is the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Financial Services Industry

05 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Venture Capital Goes Boom—or Bust?

Ninety percent of new entrepreneurial businesses that don't attract venture capital fail within three years. A software engineer at the government contractor EG&G, Don Brooks had been working on computer systems for the Idaho National... View Details

Keywords: by Paul A. Gompers & Josh Lerner

June 1993 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Milkpak Limited.: International Joint Venture

By: John A. Quelch

Considers a Pakistani company's decision to conduct a joint venture with a foreign multinational. In 1987, Milkpak Ltd. had successfully developed a market for sterilized milk and wanted to produce other value-added food products. The company was evaluating the best... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Multinational Firms and Management; Joint Ventures; Developing Countries and Economies; Food and Beverage Industry; Pakistan

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

August 2003 (Revised May 2009)
Background Note

Basic Venture Capital Formula, The

By: William A. Sahlman and Matthew Willis

Briefly summarizes the process that venture capitalists use to analyze high-risk, long-term investments. Contains information on methods that can be used to calculate valuation, share price, percent ownership, implied valuation, dilution, and option pools. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

11 Dec 2018
Video

Summer Venture In Management Program

April 1998
Case

Advent Israel Venture Capital Program, The

By: Paul A. Gompers and Jeffrey M. Anapolsky

Explores the decision by Advent, an international venture capital firm, to start a fund focused on Israel. Advent must decide who to hire to run the fund and how much money to raise. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Global Strategy; Recruitment; Expansion; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Israel

Find at Harvard

February 2006 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Corporate Venture Capital at Eli Lilly

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Ron Laufer and David Lane

Reviews the role of corporate venture capital and its history at Eli Lilly. Also presents a challenging venture investment opportunity. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Pharmaceutical Industry

Research Summary

Venture Capital Organizations and Entrepreneurial Finance

By: Paul A. Gompers

Paul A. Gompers is examining corporate control and governance issues in venture capital organizations and entrepreneurial firms in an effort to understand how their relationships with their investors affect the venture capitalists' investment decisions. Using... View Details

01 Mar 2005
News

Venture Capital’s Comeback

(SVB), headquartered in Santa Clara, California, wields enormous influence within the tightly knit venture community. So when the bank’s president and CEO, Ken Wilcox (MBA 1983), comes calling, it’s an important occasion — at least under... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

September 2004
Teaching Note

How Venture Capitalists Evaluation Potential Venture Opportunities (TN)

Teaching Note to (9-805-019). View Details

July 2021
Case

Bessemer Venture Partners: Century Fund

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In July of 2021, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) contemplated the future of its growth investing practice, known as “Century.” While still relatively new as a focused initiative, BVP’s growth investing already had significant momentum. The fund’s investment pace had... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Financial Institutions; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment Banking; Competitive Strategy; Public Sector; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Acquisition

05 Oct 2011
News

Raise Taxes on Venture Capital?

August 1997 (Revised September 1997)
Case

GMIMCo Venture Capital: September 1996

By: Josh Lerner, Peter Wendell and Catherine M. Conneely

Kathryn Stokel must choose between three venture capital groups (if any) in which to invest the pension fund of General Motors Corp. Each has distinct strengths and weaknesses. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Asset Management; Retirement; Investment Funds; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry

19 Oct 2017
Video

Summer Venture in Management Program

November 2021
Article

Venture Capitalists and COVID-19

By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev

We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of... View Details

Keywords: Investment Decisions; COVID-19 Pandemic; Impact; Health Pandemics; Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making; Surveys