Publications

September 2013 (Revised November 2013)
Case

AngelList

By: Ramana Nanda and Liz Kind

In early 2010, Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi posted a list of angel investors on the Venture Hacks blog as a resource for founders looking for funding prior to seeking venture capital. The list quickly evolved into AngelList, a separate matchmaking platform for... View Details

Keywords: Angel Investors; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Financial Services Industry; United States

July 2016
Article

Kicking Off Social Entrepreneurship: How A Sustainability Orientation Influences Crowdfunding Success

By: Goran Calic and Elaine Mosakowski

Research generally suggests that, relative to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs stand at a disadvantage at acquiring resources through traditional financial institutions. Yet interest in social entrepreneurship appears to be at an all-time high. The... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Entrepreneurial Finance; Social Entrepreneurship; Capital; Environmental Sustainability

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January 2020
Case

Khan Academy 2018 (Abridged)

By: William A. Sahlman and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2008, Khan Academy was a global educational nonprofit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere in the world. By 2018, the organization had expanded into numerous content areas, product areas, and geographic markets.... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Sustainability; Scaling; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Education; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Teaching; Education Industry

September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Blenheim Chalcot

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; United Kingdom; United States; India

October 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Souqalmal: The Choice Is Yours (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Alpana Thapar

This case describes how Ambareen Musa, Founder and CEO of Souqalmal, a Dubai-based online comparison aggregator of banking and insurance products launched her business in 2011 and rapidly grew it over next couple of years. However, by 2017, the Mauritian entrepreneur... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Finance; Accounting; Competitive Strategy; Financial Statements; Insurance Industry; Middle East

2023
Working Paper

How Resilient Is Venture-Backed Innovation? Evidence from Four Decades of U.S. Patenting

By: Sabrina T. Howell, Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda and Richard Townsend

Despite theoretical predictions to the contrary, corporate innovation is strongly pro-cyclical. In this paper, we compare innovation in the economy as a whole to that of firms backed by venture capital (VC), a source of capital associated with the most impactful young... View Details

Keywords: Recessions; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Business Cycles; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

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Article

Avoiding Overhead Aversion in Charity

By: Uri Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Ayelet Gneezy

Donors tend to avoid charities that dedicate a high percentage of expenses to administrative and fundraising costs, limiting the ability of nonprofits to be effective. We propose a solution to this problem: Use donations from major philanthropists to cover overhead... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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2012
Case

Robert Whelan and the Student Loan Crisis (A)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Olivia Leskinen

Robert Whelan and the Student Loan Crisis (A) 2009 AL Fellow Bob Whelan developed an idea with partners that was a seed before his fellowship year and seemed to address a significant national challenge - college financing - with a creative concept and experience from... View Details

2017
Article

New Venture Milestones and the First Female Board Member

By: Alicia DeSantola, Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Battilana

We explore the antecedents of the addition of the first woman to the boards of directors of entrepreneurial ventures. Building on research on resource dependency, we propose that new ventures are most likely to add the first woman to their boards at three developmental... View Details

Keywords: Boards Of Directors; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Diversity; Technology Industry; United States

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March 2013 (Revised July 2014)
Supplement

Bay Partners (B)

By: Josh Lerner and Lauren Barley

In December 2012, Salil Deshpande has rejoined Bay Partners (Bay), which had been restructured following the 2010 departures of three of its general partners. Life was good for Deshpande: his firm had distributed roughly $1 billion to its limited partners (LPs) over... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Funds; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

November 2012 (Revised December 2017)
Case

TerraPower

By: William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, Joseph B. Lassiter III and James McQuade

John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, returned to his office after a lengthy meeting with potential investors. It was October 2012, and TerraPower was in the process of raising a $200M Series C round to finance the ongoing development of its next-generation nuclear... View Details

Keywords: Nuclear Power; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financing and Loans; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; China; India

January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

ZappRx

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts

Web

Reunions - Alumni

encourage your classmates to invest in the future of HBS by fundraising for your class gift . Presentations Access videos, presentation slide decks, and related resources from past reunions. Photo Galleries Select photos taken by... View Details

Web

Capstone | MBA

that will advance new drug discoveries and therapeutics with those equally passionate about changing the business of healthcare for the better. 2. The practicalities of business decisions meet the practicalities of hard science. Students become adept at delving into... View Details

30 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 30

the collective interest levels of the angels can lead to a discrete change in the probability of funding for otherwise comparable ventures. We first show that angel funding is positively correlated with higher survival, additional View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Howard H. Stevenson

Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor emeritus, former Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing, and Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for... View Details

Keywords: broadcasting; communications; computer; construction; financial services; forest products; health care; high technology; industrial goods; insurance industry; investment banking industry; manufacturing; paper; professional services; real estate; service industry; software; venture capital industry

Clayton S. Rose

Clayton Rose is Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice and teaches the course Accountability in the Advanced Management Program. His case writing is focused on the how leaders consider the... View Details

Keywords: financial services

February 2023
Case

Enstitute

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

Shaila Ittycheria (MBA ’10) founded the nonprofit organization Enstitute, in 2012 in New York City. Determined to challenge the status quo within higher education, Shaila and her cofounder sought to expand opportunities for talented young people by placing them in... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Education Industry; Employment Industry; United States