KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

Ramana  Nanda; Toby E. Stuart

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2009 (Revised July 2009)

KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

by Ramana Nanda and Toby E. Stuart

Abstract

Biofuels start-up KiOR was developing a proprietary technology that had the potential to dramatically impact the emerging renewable energy landscape: a process that converted cellulosic biomass into "bio-crude," a hydrocarbon mixture with properties to those of crude oil. KiOR had been operating as a virtual organization, but with venture financing in place, founder and chief technology officer Paul O'Connor and the KiOR board needed to decide where to headquarter their business.

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Decision Choices and Conditions; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Location;

Format: Print

23 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Nanda, Ramana, and Toby E. Stuart. "KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy." Harvard Business School Case 809-092, March 2009. (Revised July 2009.)

About the Author

Ramana Nanda

Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration (Leave of Absence)

Entrepreneurial Management

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India's GQ Highway Network

Abhiman Das, Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

We use the construction of India's Golden Quadrangle (GQ) central highway network, together with comprehensive loan data drawn from the Reserve Bank of India, to investigate the interaction between infrastructure development and financial sector depth. We identify a disproportionate increase in loan count and average loan size in districts along the GQ highway network using stringent specifications with industry and district fixed effects. Our results hold in straight-line IV frameworks and are not present in “placebo tests” with another highway that was planned to be upgraded at the same time as GQ but subsequently delayed. Importantly, however, results are concentrated in districts with stronger initial financial development, suggesting that while financing does respond to large infrastructure investments and help spur real economic outcomes, initial financial sector development might play an important role in determining where real activity will grow.

Keywords: Infrastructure; Financing and Loans; India;

Citation:
Das, Abhiman, Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover, William R. Kerr, and Ramana Nanda. "Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India's GQ Highway Network." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-121, June 2019. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2018 (Revised June 2019)

CleanWater, Inc.: Running Dry & Out of Time

Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White, Shai Bernstein and James Barnett

Citation:
Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, Shai Bernstein, and James Barnett. "CleanWater, Inc.: Running Dry & Out of Time." Harvard Business School Case 819-016, November 2018. (Revised June 2019.) View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship

Sabrina T. Howell and Ramana Nanda

Exploiting random assignment of judges to panels at Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition (NVC) between 2000 and 2015, we find that exposure to more venture capitalist (VC) judges increases male participants’ chances of starting a VC-backed startup after HBS much more than this exposure increases female participants’ chances. A survey suggests this is in part because male participants more often proactively reach out to VC judges after the NVC. Our results suggest that networking frictions are an important reason men benefit more than women from exposure to VCs. Such frictions can help explain part of the gender gap in entrepreneurship and also have implications for how to design networking opportunities to facilitate financing of the best (rather than just the best networked) ideas.

Keywords: Networking; frictions; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Venture Capital;

Citation:
Howell, Sabrina T., and Ramana Nanda. "Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-105, April 2019. View Details

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KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

Abstract

Citation:

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