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    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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      • 06 Apr 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Disrupting the Waste Industry with Technology

      Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform, providing efficient service anywhere in the US. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School Associate Professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup leveraged technology to disrupt the waste industry and other enduring lessons of professor Bill Sahlman’s case about Rubicon.  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      Read the Transcript

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      Venture CapitalRemove Venture Capital →

      New research on venture capital from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including how venture capitalists make decisions, the economics of private equity partnerships, and angel investments.
      Page 1 of 38 Results →
      • 30 Nov 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      COVID Not Slowing VC Investment

      by Danielle Kost

      Despite the economic uncertainty, most venture capitalists expect their investments to outperform major equity indexes and are still funding new endeavors, says Paul Gompers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 17 Nov 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Venture Capitalists and COVID-19

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

      This survey of more than 1,000 venture capitalists finds that the VC industry and its portfolio companies have reduced their activity less than in previous recessions and have been more resilient than many other sectors of the global economy.

      • 27 Oct 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Does Venture Capital Attract Human Capital? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

      by Shai Bernstein, Kunal Mehta, and Richard Townsend

      Using a randomized field experiment conducted on a large online search platform, this study illustrates how investments by top venture capital investors attract potential employees and improve the pool of candidates available for the startup.

      • 13 Oct 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

      by Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend, and Yulia Zhestkova

      This study of foreign corporate investment transactions from 32 countries between 1976 and 2015 finds these investments pose a trade-off: While they support young firms in pursuing innovations they could not otherwise afford, they also generate knowledge for the foreign investors.

      • 27 Jul 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Evolution of CEO Compensation in Venture Capital-Backed Startups

      by Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda, and Christopher Stanton

      Resolving uncertainty related to market demand—so called “product-market” fit—marks a key inflection point in the compensation contract for CEOs of venture-capital backed firms.

      • 07 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Financial Distancing: How Venture Capital Follows the Economy Down and Curtails Innovation

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

      Common wisdom holds that VC investment and VC-backed startups are relatively insulated from downturns. This study shows that the relative quantity and quality of innovation declines more for VC-backed firms than for other types of firms during downturns.

      • 04 Feb 2020
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Why Backstage Capital Invests in ‘Underestimated’ Entrepreneurs

      Laura Huang discusses VC Arlan Hamilton’s strategy of backing entrepreneurs who have been ignored because of stereotypes, biases, and preconceptions. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 10 Apr 2019
      • HBS Case

      How Entrepreneurs Can Turn Lead Into Gold

      by Michael Blanding

      Innovative about creating new products, entrepreneurs often lose imagination when it comes to funding their dreams. Andy Wu reveals alternatives beyond friends and family. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 04 Oct 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      Diversity Boosts Profits in Venture Capital Firms

      by Michael Blanding

      VC firms that score high in diversity among their partners also tend to be more profitable, according to Paul Gompers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 02 Apr 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      Is 'Gut Feel' a Good Reason to Invest in a Startup?

      by Michael Blanding

      Most investments in startups should never be made, at least when using by-the-numbers reasoning. But funded they are. Laura Huang believes investors use gut instinct to manage that risk. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 12 Mar 2018
      • Op-Ed

      Op-Ed: Why BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Is Not a Socialist

      by Bill George

      BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s open letter to CEOs has reignited the “shareholders versus stakeholders” debate. Bill George says it's actually not much of a debate: mission-driven, values-centered companies perform better. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 04 Aug 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Private Equity and Financial Fragility During the Crisis

      by Shai Bernstein, Josh Lerner, and Filippo Mezzanotti

      Examining the activity of almost 500 private equity-backed companies during the 2008 financial crisis, this study finds that during a time in which capital formation dropped dramatically, PE-backed companies invested more aggressively than peer companies did. Results do not support the hypothesis that private equity contributed to the fragility of the economy during the recent financial crisis.

      • 11 May 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates

      by Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

      A startup typically has more than one investor, each with different incentives. Drawing on the authors’ experience, this paper documents frictions occurring when VCs with differing objectives work together in syndicates. Entrepreneurs must be careful about selecting and building the syndicate of VCs who back their firm.

      • 10 May 2017
      • Research & Ideas

      Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups

      by Michael Blanding

      Starting companies is becoming so quick and cheap that venture capitalists have shifted strategy funding entrepreneurs. Now, more startups get backing—but they have to prove themselves in a hurry, according to research by Ramana Nanda and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 28 Feb 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Patent Trolls and Small-Business Employment

      by Ian Appel, Joan Farre-Mensa, and Elena Simintzi

      Patent trolls are organizations that own patents but do not make or use the patented technology directly, instead using their patent portfolios to target firms with patent-infringement claims. This paper provides evidence that state anti-troll laws have had a net positive effect for small firms in high-tech industries. There is no significant effect for larger or non-high-tech firms.

      • 13 Feb 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Diversity in Innovation

      by Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Q. Wang

      This study discusses a systematic and persistent lack of female, Hispanic, and African American labor market participation in the innovation sector, through both entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists that fund them.

      • 10 Feb 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital

      by Ramana Nanda, Sampsa Samila, and Olav Sorenson

      To understand better what channels might account for persistence in the fund-level performance of private equity firms, the authors examine the individual investments underlying fund-level returns.

      • 23 Sep 2016
      • Working Paper Summaries

      How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?

      by Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan, and Ilya A. Strebulaev

      This study surveys 885 institutional VCs at 681 firms asking how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing; investment selection; valuation; deal structure; post-investment value-added; exits; internal VC firm issues; and external VC firm issues.

      • 17 Aug 2016
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Venture Capital Data: Opportunities and Challenges

      by Steven N. Kaplan and Josh Lerner

      Venture capital is a relatively small financial institution receiving a large amount of theoretical, empirical, policy, and media interest—perhaps because venture capital encompasses the extremes of corporate finance challenges: uncertainty, information asymmetry, and asset intangibility—and yet has been successful at growing many leading companies. This paper looks at the availability of information about venture capital. While it is it is difficult to paint in definitive terms the level of investment activity and fund performance, the quality of information available has increased in recent years and will likely continue to do so going forward.

      • 21 Jul 2016
      • Cold Call Podcast

      How Small Investors Can Bet Big on Brands They Love

      LOYAL3 allows consumers to make small stock purchases of companies they love. In this Cold Call podcast, Luis M. Viceira discusses LOYAL3's move into IPOs and the idea that shareholders make better customers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

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