Venture capital (commonly abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth (in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc). Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Typical venture capital investments occur after an initial "seed funding" round. The first round of institutional venture capital to fund growth is called the Series A round. Venture capitalists provide this financing in the interest of generating a return through an eventual "exit" event, such as the company selling shares to the public for the first time in an initial public offering (IPO), or disposal of shares happening via a merger, via a sale to another entity such as a financial buyer in the private equity secondary market or via a sale to a trading company such as a competitor.
In addition to angel investing, equity crowdfunding and other seed funding options, venture capital is attractive for new companies with limited operating history that are too small to raise capital in the public markets and have not reached the point where they are able to secure a bank loan or complete a debt offering. In exchange for the high risk that venture capitalists assume by investing in smaller and early-stage companies, venture capitalists usually get significant control over company decisions, in addition to a significant portion of the companies' ownership (and consequently value).
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This course focuses on the economic and organizational conditions that shape technological innovation by firms. The intent is for students to learn core concepts that can make innovation initiatives
The course applies finance tools and concepts to the world of venture capital and financing of projects in high-growth industries. Students are introduced to all institutional aspects of the venture c
This course provides an introduction to the topic of entrepreneurship, the process of new firm creation and the commercialization of technologies. The course integrates theories of entrepreneurship wi
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Explores Climeworks' innovative carbon removal technologies and their impact on combating global warming through direct air capture.
Delves into Switzerland's prestigious universities, thriving science park, and global companies.
Emphasizes identifying promising business opportunities and evaluating them through technologies and target market testing.
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A business plan is a formal written document containing the goals of a business, the methods for attaining those goals, and the time-frame for the achievement of the goals. It also describes the nature of the business, background information on the organization, the organization's financial projections, and the strategies it intends to implement to achieve the stated targets. In its entirety, this document serves as a road-map (a plan) that provides direction to the business.
This thesis aims to provide novel analyses and data that improve the understanding of the financing of investments in clean technologies. In particular, this thesis explores the role that private and
In this dissertation, I develop theory and evidence to argue that new technologies are central to how firms organize to create and capture value. I use computational methods such as reinforcement lear
Research on founder identity has significantly advanced our understanding of entrepreneurship and related literatures. By departing from the widely held-though often implicit-assumption that culture d