Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Nova School of Business and Economics

Entrepeneurial Finance and Venture Capital

Code

2220

Academic unit

null

Department

null

Credits

null

Teacher in charge

Francisco Queiró

Teaching language

English

Objectives

This course is devoted to new venture financing and to venture capital. It aims to prepare students to analyse high-growth early-stage ventures from a financiers perspective. Our goal is to explore why new venture financing differs from traditional corporate finance, to analyse different possible sources of funds at successive stages, understand the characteristics of successful new ventures, to have a critical perspective of business plans and to understand value drivers and valuation techniques for risky new ventures.

Additionally, we aim to understand how the venture capital industry works and the special characteristics of its investments, including techniques to align interests between the parties, the special forms of securities involved and the complex term sheets associated with venture capital financial contracting.

Prerequisites

N/A

Subject matter

We will follow a startup´s path from founding through the stages of new venture finance. The course will be structured around three modules.

  • Identifying and evaluating opportunities

  • Assessing financing alternatives

  • Realizing returns

    • Selling the venture vs IPO vs staying private Please note that the course assumes knowledge of standard corporate finance tools, namely valuation.

    Bibliography

    Main textbook:
    -Smith, Janet, Bliss, Richard and Smith, Richard Entrepreneurial Finance: Strategy, Valuation and Deal Structure, Stanford University Press, 2011.

    Other relevant books:
    -Arundale, Keith Raising Venture Capital in Europe, Kogan Page, 2007.
    -Bussgang, Jeffrey Mastering the VC Game, Portfolio, 2010.
    -Carver, Lorenzo Venture Capital Valuation, Wiley, 2012.
    -Vinturella, John and Erickson, Suzanne, Raising Entrepreneurial Capital, Elsevier, 2004.
    -Wilmerding, Alex Term Sheets & Valuations, Aspatore Books, 2006.

    Teaching method

    Students are expected to:
     Attend classes and actively participate in discussions
     Prepare the analysis of companies making presentations in class
     Get actively involved in group analysis of the case-studies
     Produce presentations on case-studies
     Make oral presentations of their reports
     Participate (in groups) on the EntrepSim Entrepreneurship Simulation (2nd half of semester)
     Devote to home-study about 2 hours per class

    Evaluation method

     Group Work on case-studies (30%)
     Class Participation (20%)

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