Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • March 2010 (Revised January 2012)
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Microsoft's IP Ventures

By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:24
ShareBar

Abstract

Microsoft's IP Ventures program, through which Microsoft spun out promising but unused technologies into new companies, is a new approach to corporate venture capital. The program provides "IP for equity" and has proven very successful in achieving its main goals—improved morale among researchers who like knowing their technology is being used, improved relationships with the venture capital community particularly in Silicon Valley, and good PR. Many of the eight companies launched so far are doing well. Yet how can the program be scaled beyond its current size, and how can it structure its investments to reduce the dilution that Microsoft invariably faces, given that it does not invest beyond the technology that seeds the company initially?

Keywords

Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Intellectual Property; Rights; Software; Washington (state, US)

Citation

Lerner, Josh, and Ann Leamon. "Microsoft's IP Ventures." Harvard Business School Case 810-096, March 2010. (Revised January 2012.)
  • Educators
  • Purchase

About The Author

Josh Lerner

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

Related Work

    • March 2010 (Revised January 2012)
    • Faculty Research

    Microsoft's IP Ventures

    By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
Related Work
  • Microsoft's IP Ventures By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College