GRA 3163 Financing Entrepreneurial and Corporate Ventures
GRA 3163 Financing Entrepreneurial and Corporate Ventures
The ecosystem of startups is changing rapidly, presenting new opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs and early employees as well as for established corporations seeking fresh entrepreneurial ideas. Against this dynamic backdrop, financing and growing a new venture—as an entrepreneur launching a startup or as a company cultivating entrepreneurial opportunities—requires distinctive knowledge and a skill set that integrates strategic, operational, and financial tools. The goal of this course is to apply the analytical skills and functional knowledge developed in the core curriculum to the opportunities and challenges of emerging business opportunities. This course demands synthesis of strategic and financial analysis in the context of real time applications in a diversity of industry settings, including social media and data analytics, information technology, life sciences, and healthcare and a range of equity and non-equity financing options. One of the biggest hurdles for entrepreneurs is financing their ideas—although securing funding is always difficult, this course helps you appreciate multiple options and implications for each. A special focus will be paid to the investment decision from the perspective of various investors and the entrepreneur, and students will gain insights into factors that influence the viability and financial health of a business as well as the steps that can be taken to increase venture valuation.
- Students should gain knowledge of the expanding variety of sources and types of financing available to new ventures.
- Students will learn to analyze the tradeoffs between different types of financing, including debt, and equity provided through angel investors, venture capitalists, and corporate venture capitalists.
- Students will gain knowledge about evolving forms of early stage entrepreneurial finance including accelerators and crowdfunding.
- Students should be able to identify the roles and importance of key players in entrepreneurial finance
- Students should be able to carry out valuation of early stage ventures and develop a capitalization table
- Students should understand term sheets
- Students should be able to develop a business plan for a new venture that includes attention to financing the venture
- Students should be able to use digital tools to communicate with potential investors and corporate innovators
- Students will gain analytic tools that can be applied as entrepreneurs, as industry analysts, in aspirant C-level positions at startups and existing companies, and as management consultants.
- Students should be able to use their knowledge and skills in unique situations to identify the opportunities offered by different forms of financing, but also understand the tradeoffs involved amongst these choices
- Students should be able to draw on insights from theory and their own application to reflect on appropriateness of different forms of investment
- Students should be able to understand the impact of different financing choices
The course content includes:
- Starting Strong and Getting to Launch: Understanding the financing landscape
- Financing the Growth Startup-Early Growth and Risk Capital: Choice of debt versus equity, angel investment
- Financing the Growth Startup-Early and Later Stages of Equity Investment: Venture capital, term sheets, control rights
- Emerging Models of Entrepreneurial Finance: Accelerators, crowdfunding
- Corporate Ventures: Corporate venture capital and intrapreneurship
- Milestones, Exit Strategy, and Launch: Evaluating exit options; founder and founding team transitions; growth capital and beyond
The course will consist of lectures, cases, group work, supervision and discussions. Guest lectures from key members of the entrepreneurial finance and corporate entrepreneurship ecosystem will be included during the semester.
- The first part of the course offers an intensive theoretical and practical foundation in key concepts and choices in entrepreneurial finance from the perspective of founders, investors, and corporate innovators
- The second part of the course focuses on the details of angel and venture capital investment deals, with a focus on understanding term sheets, valuation, and distribution of ownership rights.
- The third part of the course analyzes tradeoffs among different financing choices and considers emerging forms of financing.
The digital engagement platform Yellowdig will be used as a tool for class participation.
Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the examination code (course). Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course starts.
At resit, all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.
Basic knowledge from first year MSc, particularly finance fundamentals, and familiarity with use of Excel for calculation and modeling.
| Exam category | Weight | Invigilation | Duration | Support materials | Grouping | Comment exam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Structured test Exam code: GRA31631 Grading scale: Point scale Grading rules: Internal examiner Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course | 20 | Yes | Hour(s) |
| Individual | Multiple Choice and Problem Solving Test. Duration will be decided later. |
| Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Class participation Exam code: GRA31631 Grading scale: Point scale Grading rules: Internal examiner Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course | 30 | No | 1 Semester(s) | Individual | Participation and presentations | |
| Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Exam code: GRA31631 Grading scale: Point scale Grading rules: Internal and external examiner Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course | 50 | No | 1 Semester(s) | Group ( 4 - 6) | Team Project Group size may vary depending on class size. |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.