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Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2011 (Revised June 2014)

inge watertechnologies, GmbH

by Ramana Nanda, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Markus Mittermaier

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Abstract

Using the financing history and exit choices of a German clean-tech startup as a lens, this case explores the reasons why venture-backed entrepreneurship is much lower in Germany than the US, despite a robust SME sector and large-corporate innovation in Germany. It also shows the tight link between investor incentives and a startup's product market strategy, including differences between "pure-play" VCs and corporate venture capital investors.

Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; finance; negotiation; entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; Germany;

Language: English Format: Print 22 pages EducatorsPurchase

Citation:

Nanda, Ramana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Markus Mittermaier. "inge watertechnologies, GmbH." Harvard Business School Case 812-002, October 2011. (Revised June 2014.)

Related Work

  1. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2011 (Revised June 2014)

    inge watertechnologies, GmbH

    Ramana Nanda, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Markus Mittermaier

    Using the financing history and exit choices of a German clean-tech startup as a lens, this case explores the reasons why venture-backed entrepreneurship is much lower in Germany than the US, despite a robust SME sector and large-corporate innovation in Germany. It also shows the tight link between investor incentives and a startup's product market strategy, including differences between "pure-play" VCs and corporate venture capital investors.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; finance; negotiation; entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; Germany;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Markus Mittermaier. "inge watertechnologies, GmbH." Harvard Business School Case 812-002, October 2011. (Revised June 2014.)  View Details
    CiteView DetailsEducatorsPurchase Related
  2. Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

    inge watertechnologies, GmbH

    Ramana Nanda

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana. "inge watertechnologies, GmbH." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 815-049, March 2015.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsPurchase Related

About the Author

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Ramana Nanda
Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration (Leave of Absence)
Entrepreneurial Management

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View Publications »

 

More from the Author

  • Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019 (Revised October 2019)

    NewView Capital and Venture Capital Secondaries

    Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Ramana Nanda and Allison Ciechanover

    While still a general partner at Silicon Valley-based New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Ravi Viswanathan considered the challenges presented by evolving market dynamics in the venture capital space. Startups were staying private longer, which led to limited partners thirsty for liquidity and venture capital funds managing overloaded portfolios. Viswanathan and the senior leaders of NEA orchestrated the purchase of 31 NEA unrealized portfolio companies by the newly created $1.35 billion NewView Capital spinout that he would head. This secondary transaction provided liquidity to NEA’s limited partners and reallocated NEA partners’ time to shepherd other portfolio companies, while at the same time allowing NewView Capital to reap gains from future exits from a portfolio of diverse, high-quality growth stage technology companies. Now, as he prepares to raise Fund II, Viswanathan acknowledges that the unique circumstances that enabled the launch of Fund I would not be replicable, and he must consider alternative strategies to pursue next. Should he continue to focus on secondary transactions, focus on direct investments, or some combination of the two?

    Keywords: Venture Capital; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Strategy;

    Citation:

    Bernstein, Shai Benjamin, Ramana Nanda, and Allison Ciechanover. "NewView Capital and Venture Capital Secondaries." Harvard Business School Case 820-038, October 2019. (Revised October 2019.)  View Details
    CiteView DetailsEducators Related
  • Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019

    Carme Ruscalleda: The Chef as an Artist

    Boris Groysberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Annelena Lobb

    In October 2018, Chef Carme Ruscalleda, the most-starred woman chef in the world at the time, closed the doors of her Restaurant Sant Pau (Sant Pau), as she had on almost every night for the past 30 years—this time for the last time. Ruscalleda had opened the restaurant in 1988 with her husband and partner. Sant Pau had a rating of three Michelin stars, the highest rating available to a restaurant through the well-known MICHELIN Guide to fine dining. Her other two restaurants—Sant Pau Tokyo, a sister restaurant in Japan, and Moments, in Barcelona’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel—had two Michelin stars each. Many people—from the village and around the world—were sad to see the iconic restaurant close after so many decades. The case describes her approach to cooking, managing teams, dealing with stress, running a family business and constantly reinventing herself.

    Keywords: restaurants; Sant Pau; Personal Development and Career; Family Business; Leadership Style; Innovation and Invention; Food; Success; Food and Beverage Industry;

    Citation:

    Groysberg, Boris, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Annelena Lobb. "Carme Ruscalleda: The Chef as an Artist." Harvard Business School Case 420-028, October 2019.  View Details
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  • Chapter | The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Collaboration | 2019

    Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has largely abstracted away from the fact that a startup typically does not have just one investor but rather several VCs that come together in a syndicate to finance a venture. In this chapter, we therefore argue for an expansion of the standard perspective to also include frictions within VC syndicates. Put differently, what are the frictions that arise from the fact that there is not just one investor for each venture but several investors with different incentives, objectives, and cash flow rights who nevertheless need to collaborate to help make the venture a success? We outline the ways in which these coordination frictions manifest themselves, describe the underlying drivers, and document several contractual solutions used by VCs to mitigate their effects. We believe that this broader perspective provides several promising avenues for future research.

    Keywords: Syndication; frictions; Venture Capital; Networks; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates." In The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Collaboration, edited by Jeffrey J. Reuer, Sharon Matusik, and Jessica F. Jones. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at HarvardPurchase Related
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