Financing Technology Ventures

Description

What to expect?

This course focuses on start-up financial viability and financing of technology ventures and innovation. We cover finance tools and concepts that are essential when assessing startup business models and a financing strategy at the early stages of startup formation. We will cover several valuation techniques, most notably discounted cash flow and real options.

Furthermore, we examine the entrepreneurial finance industry: the sources of startup funding (from crowdfunding to venture capital), motivations of entrepreneurs and investors, and the contracts between them (e.g. convertible note, equity deals, etc.). Lastly, we view the startup financing from the point of view of investors and policy-makers that want to spur entrepreneurship and innovation through financing deep technology startups, and discuss major challenges in financing ventures with long and uncertain R&D. The class lies at the intersection of research and insights from practice.