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Photo of Ramana Nanda

Unit: Entrepreneurial Management

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Additional Information
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • The Harvard University Center for the Environment
  • The Kauffman Foundation
  • Working Knowledge page

Areas of Interest

  • entrepreneurial finance
  • entrepreneurship
  • government and business
  • innovation
  • venture capital

Additional Topics

  • environment
  • financial intermediaries
  • financing
  • green technology
  • industry evolution
  • international entrepreneurial finance
  • international entrepreneurship
  • small business finance
  • social entrepreneurship
  • technological change
  • venture creation/development

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  • banking
  • biotechnology
  • energy
  • financial services
  • green technology
  • microfinance
  • nonprofit industry
  • venture capital industry

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  • Asia
  • Denmark
  • Europe
  • India
  • Mexico
  • North America
  • United States
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Ramana Nanda

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

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Ramana Nanda is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration and Co-Director of the Private Capital Project at Harvard Business School, where he is on a leave of absence for the academic year 2019-2020. His research examines financing frictions facing new ventures, with an aim to help entrepreneurs with fundraising and to shed light on how financial intermediaries, corporate R&D and policy makers can improve the odds of selecting and commercializing the most promising ideas and technologies in the economy.

Ramana is a Research Associate in the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at the NBER.  He received his Ph.D. from MIT's Sloan School of Management and has a BA and MA in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge, U.K. He is a recipient of the 2015 Kauffman Prize Medal, that is awarded annually to one scholar under age 40 whose research has made a significant contribution to the literature in entrepreneurship.

Prior to starting his Ph.D., Ramana was based in the London and New York offices of Oliver, Wyman & Company, where he worked primarily with clients in global capital markets as well as in small-business banking.  He continues to advise startup ventures on their financing strategies and also works with philanthropic investors who use market-based solutions to address poverty and promote entrepreneurship in developing countries.

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Publications Awards & Honors

Working Papers

  1. 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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  2. 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 variation in the number of venture capitalist (VC) judges assigned to panels at Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition (NVC) between 2000 and 2015, we find that exposure to more VC judges increases male participants’ chances of founding 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. (Revised October 2019.)  View Details
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  3. Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

    House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data

    Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    We use Census micro data to shed new light on how growth in house prices boosts U.S. entrepreneurship. At the height of the 2007 real estate boom, 5% of self-employed individuals and 12% of employer-businesses used home equity to partly or wholly finance a new business. Despite this frequency, several analyses suggest that little of the observed city-level relationship between house price increases and entrepreneurship operates through expansion of the home equity collateral channel. First, home equity gains mostly appear to substitute against loans from friends and family. The vast majority of entrepreneurs used personal savings to finance their business, and these individuals usually hold sufficient start-up capital absent the house price increases. Second, we estimate that over 90% of the relationship between house price increases and entrepreneurship observed in city-level analyses comes from higher local demand that boosts entry. Our results provide a nuanced picture: while housing collateral is important for some entrepreneurs to access needed credit, the empirical relationship between house price increases and start-up activity is more about local demand than about financing constraints.

    Keywords: house prices; collateral channel; entry; Demography; Mortgages; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Kerr, Sari Pekkala, William R. Kerr, and Ramana Nanda. "House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-069, February 2015. (Revised June 2019.)  View Details
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Journal Publications and Edited Volumes

  1. Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

    The Employment Effects of Faster Payment: Evidence from the Federal Quickpay Reform

    Jean-Noel Barrot and Ramana Nanda

    We study the impact of Quickpay, a federal reform that indefinitely accelerated payments to small business contractors of the U.S. government. We find a strong direct effect of the reform on employment growth at the firm level. Importantly, however, we also document substantial crowding out of non-treated firms' employment within local labor markets. While the overall net employment effect was positive, it was close to zero in tight labor markets—where crowding out was stronger. Our results highlight an important channel for alleviating financing constraints in small firms but also emphasize the general-equilibrium effects of large-scale interventions, which can lead to lower aggregate outcomes depending on labor market conditions.

    Keywords: Small Business; Employment; Business and Government Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;

    Citation:

    Barrot, Jean-Noel, and Ramana Nanda. "The Employment Effects of Faster Payment: Evidence from the Federal Quickpay Reform." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-004, July 2016. (Revised July 2018, forthcoming Journal of Finance.)  View Details
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  2. Article | Journal of Financial Economics | Forthcoming

    The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital

    Ramana Nanda, Sampsa Samila and Olav Sorenson

    We use investment-level data to study performance persistence in venture capital (VC). Consistent with prior studies, we find that each additional IPO among a VC firm's first ten investments predicts as much as an 8% higher IPO rate on its subsequent investments, though this effect erodes with time. In exploring its sources, we document several additional facts: successful outcomes stem in large part from investing in the right places at the right times; VC firms do not persist in their ability to choose the right places and times to invest; but early success does lead to investing in later rounds and in larger syndicates. This pattern of results seems most consistent with the idea that initial success improves access to deal flow and that preferential access raises the quality of subsequent investments, perpetuating performance differences in initial investments.

    Keywords: Performance; Monitoring; selection; Status; Venture Capital; Performance Consistency; Investment;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Sampsa Samila, and Olav Sorenson. "The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital." Journal of Financial Economics (forthcoming).  View Details
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  3. Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

    Financial Development and Technology Diffusion

    Diego Comin and Ramana Nanda

    We examine the extent to which financial market development impacts the diffusion of 16 major technologies, looking across 17 countries, from 1870 to 2000. We find that greater depth in financial markets leads to faster technology diffusion for more capital-intensive technologies but only in periods closer to the invention of the technology. In fact, we find no differential effect of financial depth on the diffusion of capital-intensive technologies in the late stages of diffusion or in late adopters. Our results are consistent with a view that local financial markets play a critical role in facilitating the process of experimentation that is required for the initial commercialization and diffusion of technologies.

    Keywords: Technology Adoption; Commercialization; Financial Markets;

    Citation:

    Comin, Diego, and Ramana Nanda. "Financial Development and Technology Diffusion." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-036, November 2014. (Revised December 2018. Forthcoming in IMF Economic Review.)  View Details
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  4. Chapter | Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Platforms | 2017

    Innovation Policies

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation, but has not examined how this affects which projects principals will start. We demonstrate that failure tolerance has an equilibrium price – in terms of an investor’s required share of equity – that increases in the level of radical innovation. Financiers with investment strategies that tolerate early failure will endogenously choose to fund less radical innovations, while the most radical innovations (for whom the price of failure tolerance is too high) can only be started by investors who are not failure tolerant. Since policies to stimulate innovation must often be set before specific investments in innovative projects are made, this creates a trade-off between a policy that encourages experimentation ex post and the one that funds experimental projects ex ante. In equilibrium, it is possible that all competing financiers choose to offer failure tolerant contracts to attract entrepreneurs, leaving no capital to fund the most radical, experimental projects in the economy. The impact of different innovation policies can help to explain who finances radical innovations, and when and where radical innovation occurs.

    Keywords: innovation; venture capital; Investing; abandonment option; failure tolerance; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Attitudes; Investment; Failure;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Innovation Policies." In Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Platforms. Vol. 37, edited by Jeffrey Furman, Annabelle Gawer, Brian Silverman, and Scott Stern, 37–80. Advances in Strategic Management. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017.  View Details
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  5. Article | Journal of Financial Economics

    Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital

    Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in recent years—an increased prevalence of a "spray and pray" investment approach—where investors provide a little funding and limited governance to an increased number of startups that they are more likely to abandon, but where initial experiments significantly inform beliefs about the future potential of the venture. This adaptation and related entry by new financial intermediaries has led to a disproportionate rise in innovations where information on future prospects is revealed quickly and cheaply and has reduced the relative share of innovation in complex technologies where initial experiments cost more and reveal less.

    Keywords: innovation; venture capital; Investing; abandonment option; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Investment;

    Citation:

    Ewens, Michael, Ramana Nanda, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital." Journal of Financial Economics 128, no. 3 (June 2018): 422–442.  View Details
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  6. Article | Management Science

    Financing Risk and Innovation

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with a greater degree of experimentation by investors. Investors respond to financing risk―a forecast of limited future funding―by modifying their focus to finance less innovative firms. Potential shocks to the supply of capital create the need for increased upfront financing, but this protection lowers the real option value of the new venture. In equilibrium, financing risk disproportionately impacts innovative ventures with the greatest real option value. We propose that extremely novel technologies may need "hot" financial markets to get through the initial period of discovery or diffusion.

    Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Financing and Loans; Innovation and Invention;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Financing Risk and Innovation." Management Science 63, no. 4 (April 2017): 901–918.  View Details
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  7. Chapter | Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16 | 2016

    Financing Entrepreneurial Experimentation

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    Keywords: innovation; venture capital; Investing; abandonment option; failure tolerance; Risk and Uncertainty; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Financing Entrepreneurial Experimentation." Chap. 1 in Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16, edited by William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner, and Scott Stern, 1–23. National Bureau of Economic Research, and University of Chicago Press, 2016.  View Details
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  8. Article | Management Science

    Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts

    Ethan Mollick and Ramana Nanda

    In fields as diverse as technology entrepreneurship and the arts, crowds of interested stakeholders are increasingly responsible for deciding which innovations to fund, a privilege that was previously reserved for a few experts, such as venture capitalists and grant‐making bodies. Little is known about the degree to which the crowd differs from experts in judging which ideas to fund, and, indeed, whether the crowd is even rational in making funding decisions. Drawing on a panel of national experts and comprehensive data from the largest crowdfunding site, we examine funding decisions for proposed theater projects, a category where expert and crowd preferences might be expected to differ greatly. We instead find significant agreement between the funding decisions of crowds and experts. Where crowds and experts disagree, it is far more likely to be a case where the crowd is willing to fund projects that experts may not. Examining the outcomes of these projects, we find no quantitative or qualitative differences between projects funded by the crowd alone, and those that were selected by both the crowd and experts. Our findings suggest that crowdfunding can play an important role in complementing expert decisions, particularly in sectors where the crowds are end users, by allowing projects the option to receive multiple evaluations and thereby lowering the incidence of "false negatives."

    Keywords: crowdfunding; Arts; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Fine Arts Industry; Technology Industry;

    Citation:

    Mollick, Ethan, and Ramana Nanda. "Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts." Management Science 62, no. 6 (June 2016): 1533–1553.  View Details
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  9. Article | Annual Review of Financial Economics

    Financing Innovation

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    We review the recent literature on the financing of innovation, inclusive of large companies and new startups. This research strand has been very active over the past five years, generating important new findings, questioning some long-held beliefs, and creating its own puzzles. Our review outlines the growing body of work that documents a role for debt financing related to innovation. We highlight the new literature on learning and experimentation across multi-stage innovation projects and how this impacts optimal financing design. We further highlight the strong interaction between financing choices for innovation and changing external conditions, especially reduced experimentation costs.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Innovation and Invention;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing Innovation." Annual Review of Financial Economics 7 (2015): 445–462.  View Details
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  10. Article | Science

    Financing Experiments

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Financing Experiments." Science 348, no. 6240 (June 12, 2015).  View Details
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  11. Article | Journal of Financial Economics

    Did Bank Distress Stifle Innovation During the Great Depression?

    Ramana Nanda and Tom Nicholas

    We find a negative relationship between bank distress and the level, quality, and trajectory of firm-level innovation during the Great Depression, particularly for R&D firms operating in capital intensive industries. However, we also show that because a sufficient number of R&D intensive firms were located in counties with lower levels of bank distress, or were operating in less capital intensive industries, the negative effects were mitigated in aggregate. Although Depression era bank distress was associated with the stifling of innovation, our results also help to explain why technological development was still robust following one of the largest shocks in the history of the U.S. banking system.

    Keywords: Great Depression; R&D; Bank Distress; Patents; Research and Development; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Tom Nicholas. "Did Bank Distress Stifle Innovation During the Great Depression?" Journal of Financial Economics 114, no. 2 (November 2014): 273–292.  View Details
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  12. Article | Journal of Economic Perspectives

    Seeking the Roots of Entrepreneurship: Insights from Behavioral Economics

    Thomas Astebro, Holger Herz, Ramana Nanda and Roberto A. Weber

    There is a growing body of evidence that many entrepreneurs seem to enter and persist in entrepreneurship despite earning low risk-adjusted returns. This has lead to attempts to provide explanations—using both standard economic theory and behavioral economics—for why certain individuals may be attracted to such an apparently unprofitable activity. Drawing on research in behavioral economics, in the sections that follow, we review three sets of possible interpretations for understanding the empirical facts related to the entry into, and persistence in, entrepreneurship. Differences in risk aversion provide a plausible and intuitive interpretation of entrepreneurial activity. In addition, a growing literature has begun to highlight the potential importance of overconfidence in driving entrepreneurial outcomes. Such a mechanism may appear at face value to work like a lower level of risk aversion, but there are clear conceptual differences—in particular, overconfidence likely arises from behavioral biases and misperceptions of probability distributions. Finally, nonpecuniary taste-based factors may be important in motivating both the decisions to enter into and to persist in entrepreneurship.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics; Attitudes; Behavior;

    Citation:

    Astebro, Thomas, Holger Herz, Ramana Nanda, and Roberto A. Weber. "Seeking the Roots of Entrepreneurship: Insights from Behavioral Economics." Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 49–70.  View Details
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  13. Article | Journal of Economic Perspectives

    Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

    William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    Entrepreneurship research is on the rise, but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro level, experimentation by new firms underlies the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction. However, at a micro level, investment and continuation decisions are not always made in a competitive Darwinian contest. Instead, a few investors make decisions that are impacted by incentive, agency, and coordination problems, often before a new idea even has a chance to compete in a market. We contend that costs and constraints on the ability to experiment alter the type of organizational form surrounding innovation and influence when innovation is more likely to occur. These factors not only govern how much experimentation is undertaken in the economy, but also the trajectory of experimentation, with potentially very deep economic consequences.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., Ramana Nanda, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Entrepreneurship as Experimentation." Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 25–48.  View Details
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  14. Article | Journal of Financial Economics

    Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    We find that VC-backed firms receiving their initial investment in hot markets are more likely to go bankrupt, but conditional on going public are valued higher on the day of their IPO, have more patents, and have more citations to their patents. Our results suggest that VCs invest in riskier and more innovative startups in hot markets (rather than just worse firms). This is true even for the most experienced VCs. Furthermore, our results suggest that the flood of capital in hot markets also plays a causal role in shifting investments to more novel startups—by lowering the cost of experimentation for early stage investors and allowing them to make riskier, and more novel, investments.

    Keywords: venture capital; innovation; Market Cycles; Financing Risk; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation." Journal of Financial Economics 110, no. 2 (November 2013): 403–418.  View Details
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  15. Article | Journal of Financial Economics

    A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending

    Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda

    We use loan-level data to study how the organizational structure of banks impacts small business lending. We find that decentralized banks-where branch managers have greater autonomy over lending decisions-give larger loans to small firms and those with "soft information." However, decentralized banks are also more responsive to their own competitive environment. They are more likely to expand credit when faced with competition but also cherry pick customers and restrict credit when they have market power. This "darker side" to decentralized banks in concentrated markets highlights that the level of local banking competition is key to determining which organizational structure provides better lending terms for small businesses.

    Keywords: Geographic Location; Customers; Financing and Loans; Credit; Organizational Structure; Banks and Banking; Governance Compliance; Competitive Strategy;

    Citation:

    Canales, Rodrigo, and Ramana Nanda. "A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending." Journal of Financial Economics 105, no. 2 (August 2012): 353–366.  View Details
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  16. Article | Journal of Economics & Management Strategy

    Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

    Ramana Nanda and Tarun Khanna

    This study explores the importance of cross-border social networks for entrepreneurs in developing countries by examining ties between the Indian expatriate community and local entrepreneurs in India's software industry. We find that local entrepreneurs who have previously lived outside India rely significantly more on diaspora networks for business leads and financing. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are based outside software hubs—where getting leads to new businesses and accessing finance is more difficult. Our results provide micro-evidence consistent with a view that cross-border social networks play an important role in helping entrepreneurs to circumvent the barriers arising from imperfect domestic institutions in developing countries.

    Keywords: Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Software; Information Technology Industry; India;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Tarun Khanna. "Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 19, no. 4 (Winter 2010): 991–1012.  View Details
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  17. Article | Management Science

    Workplace Peers and Entrepreneurship

    Ramana Nanda and Jesper B. Sorensen

    We examine whether the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity is related to the prior career experiences of an individual's co-workers, using a unique matched employer-employee panel dataset. We argue that coworkers can increase the likelihood that an individual will perceive entrepreneurial opportunities as well as increase his or her motivation to pursue those opportunities. We find that an individual is more likely to become an entrepreneur if his or her co-workers have been entrepreneurs before. Peer influences also appear to be substitutes for other sources of entrepreneurial influence: we find that peer influences are strongest for those who have less exposure to entrepreneurship in other aspects of their lives.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Perception; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Jesper B. Sorensen. "Workplace Peers and Entrepreneurship." Management Science 56, no. 7 (July 2010): 1116–1126.  View Details
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  18. Article | Journal of the European Economic Association

    Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints and Firm Entry Size

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    We examine the effect of US branch banking deregulations on the entry size of new firms using micro-data from the US Census Bureau. We find that the average entry size for startups did not change following the deregulations. However, among firms that survived at least four years, a greater proportion of firms entered either at their maximum size or closer to the maximum size in the first year. The magnitude of these effects were small compared to the much larger changes in entry rates of small firms following the reforms. Our results highlight that this large-scale entry at the extensive margin can obscure the more subtle intensive margin effects of changes in financing constraints.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Financing and Loans; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Market Entry and Exit; Banking Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints and Firm Entry Size." Journal of the European Economic Association 8, nos. 2-3 (April–May 2010): 582–593.  View Details
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  19. Article | Journal of Financial Economics

    Democratizing Entry: Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints, and Entrepreneurship

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    We examine entrepreneurship and creative destruction following US banking deregulations using Census Bureau data. US banking reforms brought about exceptional growth in both entrepreneurship and business closures. Most of the closures, however, were the new ventures themselves. Although we do find evidence for the standard story of creative destruction, the most pronounced impact was a massive increase in churning among new entrants. We argue that creative destruction requires many business failures along with the few great successes. The successes are very difficult to identify ex ante, which is why democratizing entry is an important trait of well-functioning capital markets.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Market Entry and Exit; Capital Markets; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development; Disruptive Innovation;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Democratizing Entry: Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints, and Entrepreneurship." Journal of Financial Economics 94, no. 1 (October 2009): 124–149.  View Details
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Book Chapters

  1. 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
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  2. Chapter | Handbook of Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship | 2011

    Financing Constraints and Entrepreneurship

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    Financing constraints are one of the biggest concerns impacting potential entrepreneurs around the world. Given the important role that entrepreneurship is believed to play in the process of economic growth, alleviating financing constraints for would-be entrepreneurs is also an important goal for policymakers worldwide. We review two major streams of research examining the relevance of financing constraints for entrepreneurship. We then introduce a framework that provides a unified perspective on these research streams, thereby highlighting some important areas for future research and policy analysis in entrepreneurial finance.

    Keywords: Economic Growth; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Investment; Policy; Research;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing Constraints and Entrepreneurship." In Handbook of Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, edited by David Audretsch, Oliver Falck, and Stephan Heblich, 88–103. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011. (NBER WP 15498, HBS WP 10-013.)  View Details
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  3. Chapter | Moving to the Innovation Frontier | 2016

    Regional Variation in Venture Capital: Causes and Consequences

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Regional Variation in Venture Capital: Causes and Consequences." In Moving to the Innovation Frontier, edited by Christian Keuschnigg, 44–71. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), 2016. Electronic.  View Details
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  4. Chapter | The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy | 2015

    Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy

    Ramana Nanda, Ken Younge and Lee Fleming

    We document three facts related to innovation and entrepreneurship in renewable energy. Using data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, we first show that patenting in renewable energy remains highly concentrated in a few large energy firms. In 2009, the top 20 firms accounted for over 40% of renewable energy patents in our data. Second, we compare patenting by venture-backed startups and incumbent firms. Using a variety of measures, we find that VC-backed startups are engaged in more novel and more highly cited innovations, compared to incumbent firms. Incumbent firms also have a higher share of patents that are completely un-cited or self-cited, suggesting that incumbents are more likely to engage in incremental innovation compared to VC-backed startups. Third, we document a rising share of patenting by startups that coincided with the surge in venture capital finance for renewable energy technologies in the early 2000s. We also point to structural factors about renewable energy that have caused the availability of venture capital finance for renewable energy to fall dramatically in recent years, with potential implications for the rate and trajectory of innovation in this sector.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; energy; entrepreneurial management; Energy; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Energy Industry;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Ken Younge, and Lee Fleming. "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy." Chap. 7 in The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, edited by Adam Jaffe and Benjamin Jones, 199–232. University of Chicago Press, 2015.  View Details
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Policy Reports and Practitioner-Orientated Publications

  1. Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

    The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

    Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda

    In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Less noticed, though, is ICOs appear almost antithetical to the standard approach to financing a risky venture. Structured experimentation, popularized by Eric Ries' The Lean Startup, has been widely embraced as the gold standard for how to approach the commercialization of radical new ideas. From Boston to Beijing to Bangalore, entrepreneurs and investors rattle off the importance of designing focused experiments to test hypotheses in a capital-efficient fashion in order to achieve product-market fit. But ICOs substantially limit the benefits associated with such staged experimentation, for three reasons.

    Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Finance;

    Citation:

    Bussgang, Jeffrey J., and Ramana Nanda. "The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings." Harvard Business Review (website) (November 7, 2018).  View Details
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  2. Article | Harvard Business Review

    Is a Start-Up's Strength Becoming Its Weakness?

    Ramana Nanda and Liz Kind

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Liz Kind. "Is a Start-Up's Strength Becoming Its Weakness?" Harvard Business Review 93, no. 11 (November 2015).  View Details
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  3. Article | Harvard Business Review

    Stretch the Mission? A Nonprofit That Supports Emerging-market Entrepreneurs Considers Expanding to the U.S.

    William A. Sahlman and Ramana Nanda

    A case study is presented concerning a nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs in emerging-markets countries in regions including Latin America and Asia, focusing on the decision over whether to expand its services into the Miami, Florida, area, a question on which the two co-founders of the organization disagree. It presents perspectives on the case from nonprofit executive Linda Rottenberg and entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande.

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., and Ramana Nanda. "Stretch the Mission? A Nonprofit That Supports Emerging-market Entrepreneurs Considers Expanding to the U.S." Harvard Business Review 93, no. 5 (May 2015): 113–117.  View Details
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  4. Conference Paper | 2013

    Financing Entrepreneurial Growth

    Tom Alberg, Ramana Nanda and et al.

    Citation:

    Alberg, Tom, Ramana Nanda, and et al. "Financing Entrepreneurial Growth." Paper presented at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Washington, DC, May 2013. (Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Research Paper presented at the 2013 State of Entrepreneurship Address, Washington D.C.)  View Details
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  5. Chapter | The Mexico Competitiveness Report 2009 | 2009

    Small and Medium Firm Lending in Mexico: Lessons and Current Issues

    Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda

    Mexico is often cited as one of the world's most entrepreneurial countries in terms of the percentage of its population that has started or is in the process of starting a business venture. Yet Mexico does not seem to be very friendly to entrepreneurs, as confirmed by the fact that a large portion of new businesses is created in the informal sector. The authors identify the main obstacle to this area as the country's insufficient access to credit for small entrepreneurs. The chapter is devoted to assessing recent programs adopted in Mexico to foster SME competitiveness (including programs to increase capital availability) and draws some important conclusions for policymakers in their efforts to improve the micro-components of national competitiveness.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Policy; Competition; Mexico;

    Citation:

    Canales, Rodrigo, and Ramana Nanda. "Small and Medium Firm Lending in Mexico: Lessons and Current Issues." In The Mexico Competitiveness Report 2009, edited by Ricardo Hausmann, Emilio Austin, and Irene Mia. World Economic Forum, 2009.  View Details
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Cases

  1. 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
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  2. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2018 (Revised March 2019)

    Initial Coin Offerings in 2018

    Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Nathaniel Schwalb

    In 2018, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were an emerging fundraising method for blockchain-based projects. As the ecosystem grew, there were many open questions on regulation, pricing, and even which projects were a good fit for blockchain. However, there was already some emerging consensus on the benefits and challenges of building with blockchain and emerging best practices for Initial Coin Offerings.

    Keywords: Blockchain; Initial Coin Offerings; ICO; Decentralization; networks; Protocols; Entrepreneurship; Project Finance;

    Citation:

    Bussgang, Jeffrey J., Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White, and Nathaniel Schwalb. "Initial Coin Offerings in 2018." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-057, November 2018. (Revised March 2019.)  View Details
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  3. Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | April 2019

    Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

    Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda, Rachna Tahilyani and Shweta Bagai

    Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-020.

    Citation:

    Ghosh, Shikhar, Ramana Nanda, Rachna Tahilyani, and Shweta Bagai. "Chai Point: Disrupting Chai." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 819-130, April 2019.  View Details
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  4. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised February 2018)

    Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund

    Tom Nicholas, Ramana Nanda and Benjamin N. Roth

    In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The reputation of legendary SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son depended on the success of the Vision Fund, a considerable challenge given the difficulties associated with organizing a large pool of capital, investing at scale, and generating VC-style returns. By effectively anointing category leaders and deterring competitive entry, would the Vision Fund accelerate innovation or undermine the market forces that have typically produced social value by spurring rapid technological change?

    Keywords: strategy; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy;

    Citation:

    Nicholas, Tom, Ramana Nanda, and Benjamin N. Roth. "Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund." Harvard Business School Case 819-041, October 2018. (Revised February 2018.)  View Details
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  5. Supplement | HBS Case Collection | March 2018 (Revised April 2018)

    1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture (B)

    Joseph B. Lassiter III and Ramana Nanda

    It was March 2018. Should proposed U.S. solar tariffs keep U.S.-based 1366 CEO Frank van Mierlo from starting up his 1st full-scale manufacturing plant overseas?

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Finance; Intellectual Property; Trade; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Energy Industry; United States; China; Korean Peninsula;

    Citation:

    Lassiter, Joseph B., III, and Ramana Nanda. "1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 818-116, March 2018. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details
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  6. 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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  7. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

    Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance

    Ramana Nanda, Raffaella Sadun and Olivia Hull

    Accomplice, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, is raising its second fund in November 2017. Since 2009, the firm has followed a seed-led investment model, investing in tech companies at the earliest stages, often when products and business models are still experimental. The firm’s partners are pleased with their preliminary returns and the deal flow they’ve been able to cultivate, in part by empowering local entrepreneurs to invest in promising new ideas on their behalf. The partners are confident their long-term returns will validate their investment strategy and positioning in the increasingly competitive VC market. Will investors agree?

    Keywords: venture capital; Early Stage Finance; Seed Finance; Scouts; Business Startups; Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts; Boston; Cambridge; United States;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Raffaella Sadun, and Olivia Hull. "Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance." Harvard Business School Case 719-403, October 2018.  View Details
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  8. Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2018

    Financing Anghami's Growth

    Ramana Nanda and Eren Kuzucu

    In December 2012, less than two years into the founding of their music-streaming platform Anghami, cofounders Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun found themselves evaluating an unorthodox term sheet. Habib and Maroun needed to make a decision vis-à-vis the proposal put forth by the MBC Group, the region’s largest media network. The offer was a media-for-equity deal, which would provide Anghami with advertising towards the media giant’s millions of viewers and boost its chances of competing with the likes of iTunes and Spotify in the Middle Eastern market. However, the deal would also cost the cofounders a significant share of their company and might place them in the middle of a rivalry between MBC and Rotana, the region’s largest music label. The case takes the reader through the co-founders’ journey, from the founding of the company to the successes and challenges they have faced navigating product launch, scale-up, and partnerships.

    Keywords: Growth; Startups; Copyright; Business Startups; Business Model; Music Entertainment; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Online Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Development; Expansion; Technology Platform; Agreements and Arrangements; Valuation; Decision Making; Middle East; Lebanon;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Eren Kuzucu. "Financing Anghami's Growth." Harvard Business School Case 819-033, July 2018.  View Details
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  9. Exercise | June 2018

    Venture Capital Term Sheets

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Robert White

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Robert White. "Venture Capital Term Sheets." Harvard Business School Exercise 818-137, June 2018.  View Details
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  10. Supplement | HBS Case Collection | July 2018

    Lovepop

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Olivia Hull

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 818-706, July 2018.  View Details
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  11. Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | June 2018

    Lovepop

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Olivia Hull

    Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-015.

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 818-099, June 2018.  View Details
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  12. Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018

    Mytrah Energy

    Tarun Khanna, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

    Citation:

    Khanna, Tarun, Ramana Nanda, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Mytrah Energy." Harvard Business School Case 818-021, February 2018.  View Details
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  13. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2017 (Revised March 2018)

    Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

    Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

    Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea dispenser that has the potential to dramatically increase Chai Point’s market opportunity and growth rate but can be seen as a change in their growth strategy. The founder needs to decide his strategy for his next board meeting. Should he focus on past performance? Or should he spend time outlining boxC.in’s technology and potential, since this will be the first time that the institutional investors will be seeing this new capability?

    Keywords: strategy; venture capital; stock; business model; mobile technology; Technological Innovation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Internet; Mobile Technology; Food; Selection and Staffing; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Resignation and Termination; Compensation and Benefits; Resource Allocation; Product Positioning; Distribution Channels; Product Design; Supply Chain; Governing and Advisory Boards; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; India; Karnataka; Bangalore;

    Citation:

    Ghosh, Shikhar, Ramana Nanda, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Chai Point: Disrupting Chai." Harvard Business School Case 818-020, September 2017. (Revised March 2018.)  View Details
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  14. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2017 (Revised December 2017)

    AngelList in 2017

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Liz Kind

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Liz Kind. "AngelList in 2017." Harvard Business School Case 818-041, October 2017. (Revised December 2017.)  View Details
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  15. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2017 (Revised November 2018)

    Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Alexey Tuzikov

    Keywords: Blockchain; cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Alexey Tuzikov. "Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets." Harvard Business School Technical Note 818-066, November 2017. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details
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  16. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2017 (Revised December 2017)

    Initial Coin Offerings

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Alexey Tuzikov

    Keywords: Blockchain; entrepreneurial finance;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Alexey Tuzikov. "Initial Coin Offerings." Harvard Business School Technical Note 818-067, November 2017. (Revised December 2017.)  View Details
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  17. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2017 (Revised November 2017)

    Lovepop

    Robert F. White, Ramana Nanda and Olivia Hull

    As they prepare to graduate from Harvard Business School, the co-founders of greeting card company startup Lovepop need capital to cover the company’s operating costs and must choose between two seed financing offers. One offer is from an angel group and the other from a startup accelerator. Having bootstrapped the company’s operations since its founding a year and a half earlier, the founders must weigh the differences in valuation and pros and cons of the accelerator program to determine which option is appropriate for Lovepop at this stage. In addition to addressing the challenges of early stage fundraising, the case details the terms, offerings, and operations of startup accelerators.

    Keywords: accelerator; incubator; Seed Financing; convertible debt; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Boston; Massachusetts; United States;

    Citation:

    White, Robert F., Ramana Nanda, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Case 818-015, October 2017. (Revised November 2017.)  View Details
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  18. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2016 (Revised May 2017)

    Financing Astroscale

    Ramana Nanda and Matthew Weinzierl

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; entrepreneurship; finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Weinzierl. "Financing Astroscale." Harvard Business School Case 817-025, November 2016. (Revised May 2017.)  View Details
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  19. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2016 (Revised February 2017)

    Square, Inc. IPO

    Ramana Nanda, Robert White and Lauren G. Pickle

    In November 2015, Square, Inc. launched its initial public offering (IPO). The IPO had an offering price of $9 per share, lower than the $11 to $13 estimate that had been outlined in the preliminary prospectus and 42% below the $15.50 share price in its most recent financing less than a year before. The lower-than-anticipated pricing of Square’s IPO, and the implied valuation, had left investors and market observers wondering if this was an indication of a valuation bubble or a shift in the market. The case provides an overview of the IPO process and examines U.S. IPO trends from the 1980s to mid-2010s. It explores the rationales behind an increasing number of billion-dollar-plus private valuations, known as “unicorns” and explores who the winners and losers are when such firms go public at lower valuations.

    Keywords: initial public offering; business finance; Initial Public Offering; Equity; Capital Markets; Public Equity; Stocks; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert White, and Lauren G. Pickle. "Square, Inc. IPO." Harvard Business School Case 817-054, November 2016. (Revised February 2017.)  View Details
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  20. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2016 (Revised May 2017)

    Hyperloop One

    William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, Robert White, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

    This case explores the attempt of Shervin Pishevar, a prominent Silicon Valley investor, to shepherd hyperloop, a futuristic pod-in-tube transportation technology, from concept to transformative reality via Hyperloop One and Sherpa Capital, both companies he co-founded. The case outlines the technology—first brought to widespread attention by Tesla and SpaceX executive Elon Musk—then follows Pishevar as he builds a team, develops prototypes, recruits investors and partners, and navigates the many obstacles in pursuit of this "moonshot." Students are presented with historical parallels and precedents that may illuminate certain aspects of the challenge.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; entrepreneurship; finance; transportation; Startup; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Finance; Transportation; Product Development; Innovation and Invention; Transportation Industry;

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, Robert White, Allison Ciechanover, and Jeff Huizinga. "Hyperloop One." Harvard Business School Case 817-027, November 2016. (Revised May 2017.)  View Details
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  21. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2016 (Revised April 2018)

    Western Technology Investment

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Nicole Keller

    Based in Portola Valley, California, Western Technology Investment (WTI) specialized in a hybrid form of debt and equity financing for early-stage companies. Like traditional venture capital and private equity firms, WTI raised funds from institutional investors and evaluated deals. However, instead of making initial investments in the form of equity, WTI focused primarily on lending money to start-ups, charging them interest and receiving warrants that could later be converted to stock in the case of a liquidity event. Most initial investments—usually in the range of $3–$5 million—were made in tandem with or following a company’s early rounds of venture capital equity financing. In addition, like more traditional venture capital investors, WTI hoped to participate in follow-on debt and equity investments in its successful portfolio companies.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; venture capital; entrepreneurship; finance; Equity; Finance; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; California;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Nicole Keller. "Western Technology Investment." Harvard Business School Case 817-019, September 2016. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details
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  22. Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2015

    Founder Field Day

    Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ramana Nanda and Nathaniel Burbank

    Branded as the "Millennial firm for Millennials," Mike Rothenberg founded Rothenberg Ventures (RV) in 2012 while earning his MBA at the Harvard Business School (HBS). Over the following 24 months, Rothenberg raised $20 million and built a venture capital firm that made dozens of seed investments in technology-focused startups. Pitched as an event that could pack a year's worth of networking into a single day, Founder Field Day was perhaps the firm's largest bet to date. On a spring day in May 2014, as some 300 invited founders descended on AT&T Park in San Francisco, one attendee, Fran Hauser, had a much larger decision to make than just selecting which sessions to attend in the day's 7th and 8th "innings." Rothenberg had recently asked Hauser to join RV as a partner and investor and invited her out to the Bay Area to consider the offer. Hauser, who had left her role as the president of digital for Time Inc.'s Style & Entertainment Group three months earlier, wondered if Rothenberg's inexperience would prove to be a drawback or a strength.

    Keywords: finance; venture capital; Startups; seed-investing; micro-VC; Venture Capital; Business Startups; San Francisco; New York (city, NY);

    Citation:

    Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew, Ramana Nanda, and Nathaniel Burbank. "Founder Field Day." Harvard Business School Case 815-101, February 2015.  View Details
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  23. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2014 (Revised March 2015)

    Fast Ion Battery

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

    John Davidson, a partner at Ware Street Capital (WSC) and a board member at Fast Ion Battery, had just received a phone call from Don Lerner at Bluelock Ventures telling him that Bluelock would not participate in the $5M bridge financing for Fast Ion Battery. Lerner's call could not have come at a worse time. Fast Ion was running out of cash and needed another round of financing urgently to continue developing its revolutionary battery.
    Davidson faced a real dilemma. On the one hand, the company was finally gaining traction with developing its technology and the search to replace the current CEO had yielded two prospective candidates who were extremely well-suited to drive the company forward with a more capital efficient business model. On the other hand, Ware Street Capital and the two other investors had already invested $10 million into a company that had not performed up to investors' expectations. Would they be throwing more good money after bad by providing the bridge financing? Moreover, would other, later stage, investors be willing to provide the significant amounts of capital required to get the company to an exit event given the changing climate for clean tech investments?
    These questions became more pressing following Lerner's call that Bluelock had chosen not to continue backing Fast Ion. Was Fast Ion Battery worth saving?

    Keywords: venture capital; entrepreneurial finance; real options; term sheets; Clean Technology; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Stephanie Puzio. "Fast Ion Battery." Harvard Business School Case 815-025, September 2014. (Revised March 2015.)  View Details
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  24. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2014

    Oasys Water: Balancing Strategic Partnerships & Financing Decisions

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Sid Misra

    Oasys Water had developed a proprietary water treatment technology based on an innovative forward osmosis process that could remove dissolved solids from water more effectively and efficiently than existing technologies. As Oasys looked to scale, it was exploring partnerships with various incumbent firms—the most serious were with a set of international oil and gas production companies (IOCs); a global oil and gas (O&G) services provider called National Oilwell Varco (NOV); and Woteer, a Chinese EPC company specializing in industrial water and wastewater systems.
    Woteer had expressed an interest in gaining exclusive access to Oasys' forward osmosis technology for water treatment applications in China in exchange for an equity investment. Jim Matheson, President and CEO, did not have the luxury of choosing a partner solely on the merits of its strategic value to Oasys. He was forced to evaluate the strategic benefit alongside the likelihood of actually closing a deal, the specific terms of each deal, and especially the speed with which a deal could be closed, given Oasys' pressing financing needs. Should he do a deal with Woteer, and if so, on what terms?

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; entrepreneurship; finance; strategy; Entrepreneurship; China;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Sid Misra. "Oasys Water: Balancing Strategic Partnerships & Financing Decisions." Harvard Business School Case 815-076, November 2014.  View Details
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  25. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2013 (Revised November 2013)

    AngelList

    Ramana Nanda and Liz Kind

    In early 2010, Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi posted a list of angel investors on the Venture Hacks blog as a resource for founders looking for funding prior to seeking venture capital. The list quickly evolved into AngelList, a separate matchmaking platform for founders and investors to make early stage fundraising more efficient. By June 2013, AngelList had garnered substantial media attention, and was used by many high profile angel investors and venture capitalists. It had approximately 100,000 startups and 18,000 accredited investors. Since the site was launched, almost 40 startups on AngelList had been acquired, and over 2,000 startups had been funded. For most entrepreneurs, posting a profile on AngelList had become as commonplace as setting up a personal profile on Facebook or LinkedIn. Most recently, the site added Invest Online, a new product that in partnership with SecondMarket, allowed accredited investors to make small investments—as low as $1,000—in startups at the same terms as larger investors.

    While the co-founders were proud of AngelList's growth, as of June 2013, they were not charging for its use and had not yet determined its business model. Ravikant and Nivi wondered if they should reconsider and have AngelList apply for broker dealer status so it could charge transaction fees, but they were reluctant to enter what they considered a regulatory minefield. The recently passed JOBS Act was expected to relax constraints around crowdfunding, and Nivi and Ravikant knew that would be a logical extension for AngelList as well. Finally, they wondered if they should avoid any potential regulatory issues altogether and instead focus on generating revenue primarily from recruiting and other ancillary services.

    Keywords: angel investors; finance; venture capital; entrepreneurial finance; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Financial Services Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Liz Kind. "AngelList." Harvard Business School Case 814-036, September 2013. (Revised November 2013.)  View Details
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  26. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2013 (Revised August 2016)

    NOWaccount

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Lauren Barley

    It was September 2013, and NOWaccount Network Corporation (NOW®) co-founders John Hayes and Lara Hodgson were putting the final touches on the presentation deck for their annual shareholders' meeting. Along with co-founder Stacey Abrams, the pair had designed NOW's business model three years ago, and the company was at a critical juncture. NOW offered a program—called NOWaccount—that provided working capital to small businesses by converting their trade receivables almost immediately into cash. Founded in December 2010, Atlanta, Georgia-based NOW was serving clients in nine states. With 2013 year-to-date revenue of roughly $100,000, NOW was financed with $2.5 million of founder, and friends and family equity.

    NOW's wholly-owned, not-for-profit special purpose entity (SPE), Trade Credit Guaranty Corporation (TCGC), purchased approved receivables, funding 90% of the invoice face values by electronic transfers into clients' bank accounts. As of September 2013, TCGC had purchased more than $13 million of small business trade receivables from more than 40 clients. Once TCGC reached a scale of approximately $150 million of funds in use for receivable purchases, the co-founders planned to tap into the securitization market for capital by issuing asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized by a pool of receivables, much like the credit card industry. ABS would provide TCGC ongoing capital at a lower cost.

    The question the co-founders confronted was whether they should get to the $150 million securitization threshold by piecing together smaller pools of capital from credit unions and possibly smaller banks (a slower approach but one that did not involve dilution because it was all debt finance), or by accepting larger chunks of capital from a major global bank and a private equity firm, getting them much closer to the threshold but at the cost of significant dilution (35%) as these financiers were also looking for a combination of equity and warrants in NOW. As they prepared to discuss their options at the shareholders' meeting, Hayes and Hodgson considered each option's trade-offs in timing, cost, control, and execution risk.

    Keywords: finance; entrepreneurial finance; entrepreneurship; Finance; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Lauren Barley. "NOWaccount." Harvard Business School Case 814-048, October 2013. (Revised August 2016.)  View Details
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  27. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2013 (Revised December 2013)

    Endeavor: Miami Heats Up

    William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, David Lane and Lisa Mazzanti

    Endeavor Global was a nonprofit that for 15 years had worked to nurture entrepreneurship in emerging markets by selecting local high-impact entrepreneurs for mentoring and aid in scaling up their businesses from committed local business leaders. In summer 2012, Endeavor received an invitation to replicate its model in Miami, Florida, and the Endeavor board was meeting to debate the value of such a move. At issue were questions of organizational mission and the relevance of Miami, as well as branding, funding, and focus. The invitation had come in the midst of a major expansion effort by Endeavor into new emerging markets and threatened to disrupt those efforts and tax a new hybrid funding model which Endeavor was implementing. Founder Linda Rottenberg, with the support of her board, must determine the implications of possibly opening in Miami on Endeavor's resources and mission. How could Rottenberg justify to overseas affiliates a choice to invest in a first-world city?

    Keywords: social enterprise; entrepreneurs; scaling; emerging market entrepreneurship; not for profit; entrepreneurial finance; mentoring; business networks; hybrid nonprofit funding; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges; Finance; Miami;

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, David Lane, and Lisa Mazzanti. "Endeavor: Miami Heats Up." Harvard Business School Case 814-043, November 2013. (Revised December 2013.)  View Details
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  28. Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2013 (Revised June 2014)

    Getit

    Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

    Sidharth Gupta, CEO of Getit Infomediary Ltd, had just received a term sheet from Helion Venture Partners (Helion), one of India's independent venture capital firms, offering to invest Rs 200 million in return for an equity stake in the company. His dream of transforming Getit from a regional print company into a digital company with broad geographical reach was within grasp. However, Gupta had to act fast; Helion's term sheet would expire in a fortnight if unexecuted. Bank finance and trade credit had tided Getit through tough times in the past, and Getit still had a Rs 250 million bank line to draw on. Should he take the venture capital investment? And if so, what implications would this have for his family business and for him personally?

    Keywords: venture capital; publishing; media and publishing; entrepreneurial finance; Venture Capital; Media; Entrepreneurship; India;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Getit." Harvard Business School Case 813-178, May 2013. (Revised June 2014.)  View Details
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  29. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2012 (Revised December 2017)

    TerraPower

    William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, Joseph B. Lassiter III and James McQuade

    John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, returned to his office after a lengthy meeting with potential investors. It was October 2012, and TerraPower was in the process of raising a $200M Series C round to finance the ongoing development of its next-generation nuclear reactor. Though early in the fundraising process, Gilleland noted that this most recent conversation was similar to conversations with other interested cleantech growth equity investors. The conversations circled around a common theme: "This is the biggest idea that's ever been presented at our partners' meeting. We love what you're doing, but it's not right for us as an investment." Outside of raising money from typical growth equity and infrastructure funds, Gilleland could partner with a government and/or form a joint venture with an existing nuclear power player. Reliance Industries as an investor in TerraPower could provide an entry point into the fast growing Indian market. At the same time, Gilleland and Gates had talked with China National Nuclear Corp. about a possible cooperation with TerraPower. Whom should Gilleland call next?

    Keywords: nuclear power; entrepreneurial finance; venture capital; Financing and Loans; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; China; India;

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, Joseph B. Lassiter III, and James McQuade. "TerraPower." Harvard Business School Case 813-108, November 2012. (Revised December 2017.)  View Details
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  30. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2012 (Revised March 2013)

    Entrepreneurial Finance in Finland?

    William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Alexis Brownell

    This case describes a new venture attempting to bring early-stage entrepreneurial financing to Finland and other Nordic countries. Entrepreneurship is taking off in Finland, an area that historically has had little venture capital or high-growth start-up activity, but a gap remains for seed-stage financing. The founders are evaluating the best way to structure their private equity fund to reflect their own assets and abilities and the needs and resources of the entrepreneurial scene in the Nordics. The case evaluates whether to organize as an accelerator, a micro-VC fund, an incubator, a normal VC fund, or as a hybrid.

    Keywords: angels; angel investors; VC; micro-VC; accelerator; incubator; entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial finance; venture capital; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Business Startups; Financial Services Industry; Finland; Scandinavia; Europe;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., Ramana Nanda, and Alexis Brownell. "Entrepreneurial Finance in Finland?" Harvard Business School Case 813-068, September 2012. (Revised March 2013.)  View Details
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  31. Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2012

    Owen's Precision Machining

    Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

    For the second time in fourteen months, Christopher Owen, the second-generation owner of Owen's Precision Machining (OPM), found himself running out of cash. Owen wondered what he was doing wrong. How much additional money would he need to raise to get OPM through the next twelve months, and what could he change now to fix his company for the long term? Owen's thoughts also turned to the conversation he had last month with two Harvard Business School alumni who were searching for a manufacturing business to acquire after spending the early part of their career in manufacturing at GE's Aircraft Engine division in Lynn, MA. Their offer of $1.1 million, or 6.9x times 2011 EBITDA of $159,292, was a pleasant surprise, but Owen was not interested in getting out of his family's business. Given the current cash flow situation, should Owen reconsider the acquisition offer?

    Keywords: Family Business; Cash Flow; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Problems and Challenges; Business Strategy; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and James McQuade. "Owen's Precision Machining." Harvard Business School Case 813-036, July 2012.  View Details
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  32. Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2012 (Revised October 2012)

    H-Soft Mumbai

    Ramana Nanda

    Siddharth Kapoor, the Founder and CEO of H-Soft Mumbai reflected on his meeting as he walked out of VC Ventures' offices in Mumbai. After a few months of intensely pitching his startup to several different investors, he finally had a term sheet in hand. Despite this huge milestone, Kapoor knew it was only the start of a long process of raising money. He only had three days to get back to Sharma and indicate whether he would like to initiate the diligence process. While he was familiar with some of the terms venture capital investors put into their contracts, many others were completely alien to him. Which terms were important? Which ones should he focus on negotiating? He also knew that money was only part of what the venture capital brought to the table. Was VC Ventures the right partner for his business? Kapoor knew he had a busy few days ahead of him as he thought through all of the questions before getting back to Vikram Sharma.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; venture capital term sheet; india; Business Startups; Investment; Venture Capital; Contracts; Partners and Partnerships; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Decision Making;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana. "H-Soft Mumbai." Harvard Business School Case 812-168, May 2012. (Revised October 2012.)  View Details
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  33. Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2011 (Revised May 2012)

    SecondMarket—Providing Liquidity for Shareholders of Privately Held iContact

    William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

    In 2011, SecondMarket was an online platform that facilitated secondary transactions of illiquid assets, including private company stock. This case explores reasons for the decline in small-cap IPOs in the United States from the 1990s to the 2000s and how the emergence of SecondMarket provided liquidity to privately held companies like iContact, an email and social marketing software-as-a-service (SaaS) company.

    Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations;

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, and James McQuade. "SecondMarket—Providing Liquidity for Shareholders of Privately Held iContact." Harvard Business School Case 812-072, November 2011. (Revised May 2012.)  View Details
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  34. 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
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  35. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2011 (Revised August 2017)

    PunchTab, Inc.

    Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Lauren Barley

    PunchTab was a Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2011, that was developing an Internet-based turnkey customer loyalty program for website owners, mobile applications developers, and brands. Founder/CEO Ranjith Kumaran must make strategic decisions about how to fund PunchTab's early operations and growth given the many options available: individual angel investors, super angel funds, incubators, and seed funds inside traditional venture capital firms.

    Keywords: Financial Strategy; Investment; Investment Funds; Web Sites; Mobile Technology; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; San Francisco;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William R. Kerr, and Lauren Barley. "PunchTab, Inc." Harvard Business School Case 812-033, October 2011. (Revised August 2017.)  View Details
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  36. Supplement | HBS Case Collection | November 2016

    PunchTab, Inc. Investor Presentation Deck

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "PunchTab, Inc. Investor Presentation Deck." Harvard Business School PowerPoint Supplement 817-705, November 2016.  View Details
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  37. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2011 (Revised August 2012)

    INNOVA-MEX's Bid for ENKONTROL

    Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Carin-Isabel Knoop

    In their second year, two Mexican HBS MBAs joined forces to start a search fund based in Mexico City. They had raised money to acquire an existing private company in Mexico with an initial enterprise value between $5 million and $15 million. Just seven months after raising the fund, they were about to close a deal on a target company, but the seller wants to renegotiate.

    Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Corporate Finance; Mexico City;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William R. Kerr, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "INNOVA-MEX's Bid for ENKONTROL." Harvard Business School Case 812-008, October 2011. (Revised August 2012.)  View Details
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  38. Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2011 (Revised April 2018)

    1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture

    Joseph B. Lassiter III, Ramana Nanda, David Kiron and Evan Richardson

    For some time, 1366's co-founders, Frank van Mierlo and Ely Sachs, had faced a choice, which was now made all the more stark: 1366 could expand to produce silicon wafers itself, raising the required capital from "friendly" investors and building shipment volume slowly, or 1366 could accelerate its market entry dramatically by partnering with the Asian manufacturers that had begun to dominate the world-wide solar industry. While accelerated growth was attractive to 1366 and its current investors, the company believed that it would face considerable risks if it were to expose its intellectual property to the "wrong" partners. 1366 had no intention of losing control of its technology, but given the pace of innovation and the active role of governments in the solar industry, van Mierlo and Sachs feared this might not be a race that could be won by the cautious.

    Keywords: Technology; Innovation Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Intellectual Property; Management Teams; Renewable Energy; Financial Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Finance; Energy Industry; Technology Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Lassiter, Joseph B., III, Ramana Nanda, David Kiron, and Evan Richardson. "1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture." Harvard Business School Case 811-076, March 2011. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details
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  39. Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2010 (Revised June 2011)

    U.S. Department of Energy & Recovery Act Funding: Bridging the "Valley of Death"

    Michael J. Roberts, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Ramana Nanda

    The case focuses on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the $38 billion of stimulus funding the DOE received to encourage clean tech. They focus on "bridging the valley of death" (i.e., helping young, innovative companies finance technically risky and very capital intensive development and commercialization programs). The case focuses on two DOE programs in particular, the Loan Guarantee Program and ARPA-E. The case raises the question of why these valleys of death exist, what can be done to deal with them, and how these DOE programs are designed and implemented.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Government and Politics; Innovation and Invention; Programs; Business and Government Relations; Weather and Climate Change; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry;

    Citation:

    Roberts, Michael J., Joseph B. Lassiter III, and Ramana Nanda. U.S. Department of Energy & Recovery Act Funding: Bridging the "Valley of Death". Harvard Business School Case 810-144, June 2010. (Revised June 2011.)  View Details
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  40. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2009 (Revised June 2010)

    1366 Technologies

    Joseph B. Lassiter III, Ramana Nanda and David Kiron

    Just months after declaring their intent to become a solar cell equipment supplier, van Mierlo and Sachs were again revisiting the issue of what the company should be. Becoming a successful solar cell manufacturer would potentially be much more lucrative than becoming a successful equipment supplier. But, the latter was much less capital intensive and perhaps a less operationally risky approach. For van Mierlo and Sachs, the question—"What kind of company should 1366 become?"—was back on the table.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Commercialization; Corporate Strategy; Green Technology Industry;

    Citation:

    Lassiter, Joseph B., III, Ramana Nanda, and David Kiron. "1366 Technologies." Harvard Business School Case 810-005, October 2009. (Revised June 2010.)  View Details
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  41. Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2009 (Revised July 2009)

    KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

    Ramana Nanda and Toby E. Stuart

    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;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Toby E. Stuart. "KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy." Harvard Business School Case 809-092, March 2009. (Revised July 2009.)  View Details
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  42. Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2005 (Revised September 2006)

    ICICI's Global Expansion

    Tarun Khanna and Ramana Nanda

    Follows the decision by ICICI (one of India's largest banks) to expand internationally in June 2001.

    Keywords: Emerging Markets; Global Strategy; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; India;

    Citation:

    Khanna, Tarun, and Ramana Nanda. "ICICI's Global Expansion." Harvard Business School Case 706-426, September 2005. (Revised September 2006.)  View Details
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Technical and Module Notes

  1. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | April 2019

    A Note on Boards in VC-Backed Ventures

    Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda, Suraj Srinivasan and Terrence Shu

    What is the value of a Board, and why does a company need one? The note documents the formal role of a Board of Directors as going beyond simply acting as legal representation of corporate ownership. Moreover, this role changes as the company moves through different stages of growth. The note discusses the structure and composition of a Board (Board Committees, Board Chair and Board Observers), along with best practices for managing the Board process (including what happens before and after each meeting, as well as the meeting itself). Entrepreneurs need to set foundations for Board composition, structure, compensation, and terms, early on in the company’s journey. Many of the qualitative insights in the note are collated from the collective experience of the authors.

    Keywords: founders; Business Startup; board; board of directors; Business Startups; Governing and Advisory Boards; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Ghosh, Shikhar, Ramana Nanda, Suraj Srinivasan, and Terrence Shu. "A Note on Boards in VC-Backed Ventures." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-128, April 2019.  View Details
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  2. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2017 (Revised November 2018)

    Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets

    Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Alexey Tuzikov

    Keywords: Blockchain; cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Alexey Tuzikov. "Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets." Harvard Business School Technical Note 818-066, November 2017. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details
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  3. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | August 2018

    Evaluating Start Ups

    William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda and Robert F. White

    A framework for assessing new business opportunities and the business plans used to describe them is developed. Useful for aspiring entrepreneurs in MBA programs.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Plan; Opportunities;

    Citation:

    Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, and Robert F. White. "Evaluating Start Ups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-039, August 2018.  View Details
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  4. Other Teaching and Training Material | 2014

    Entrepreneurship Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures

    William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

    "Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures" introduces students to the key issues involved in the financing of entrepreneurial enterprises. The Reading begins by examining how business models shape external financing requirements. It then contrasts the choice to bootstrap with the option to raise external funds, as well as the traits of debt versus equity investment. Students learn about the different types of equity investors-including angels, VCs, and strategic investors-and follow an entrepreneurial venture's path through the financing stages. Students also examine how entrepreneurs can adjust business models to match financial conditions, and how they can reduce financing needs through alternative models such as partnerships. Finally, the Reading covers emerging funding models-such as crowdsourcing and accelerators-and the global aspects of entrepreneurial finance. There are 6 Interactive Illustrations included in the Reading: "Calculating a Cumulative Cash Flow Curve," "Asset Intensity Ratio," "Building a Cap Table," "How Investor Expectations and Target Returns Drive Company Ownership," "Payouts from Simple Equity and Convertible Investments," and "Seed Note Ownership and Value."
    Additionally, a supplemental section at the end of the Reading covers the details of different debt financing forms, the structures of VC firms and angel investment groups, and the forms of entrepreneurial finance needed for breakthrough discoveries.

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., Ramana Nanda, and James McQuade. "Entrepreneurship Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures." Core Curriculum Readings Series. Harvard Business Publishing 8072, 2014.  View Details
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  5. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2011

    Financing New Ventures

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    Aid in understanding of financing entrepreneurship.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing New Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 811-093, March 2011.  View Details
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  6. Module Note | March 2015 (Revised October 2015)

    Experimentation and Real Options in Entrepreneurial Finance

    Ramana Nanda

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana. "Experimentation and Real Options in Entrepreneurial Finance." Harvard Business School Module Note 815-056, March 2015. (Revised October 2015.)  View Details
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  7. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

    Multi-Stage Financing of High-Potential Ventures

    Ramana Nanda

    Keywords: finance; entrepreneurial finance; Financial Strategy;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana. "Multi-Stage Financing of High-Potential Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 815-112, March 2015.  View Details
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  8. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | September 2012 (Revised September 2016)

    Convertible Notes in Seed Financings

    Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Robert F. White

    This note introduces convertible notes in angel financing. It begins by delineating the differences between a priced and non-priced round. It then describes a specific example of a convertible note, with attention paid to technical details regarding valuation caps.

    Keywords: financing; Finance; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William R. Kerr, and Robert F. White. "Convertible Notes in Seed Financings." Harvard Business School Background Note 813-017, September 2012. (Revised September 2016.)  View Details
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  9. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2013 (Revised April 2018)

    Non-Equity Financing for Entrepreneurial Ventures

    Joan Farre-Mensa, Ramana Nanda and Piyush Jain

    Young, and particularly high-growth ventures often need to raise significant external finance, since their internal cash flow is usually insufficient to support the investments needed to grow. Although raising equity from venture capital or angel investors is the most well-known source of external finance for high-growth ventures, many entrepreneurs, particularly small business owners, rely on debt and other non-equity sources of capital to finance their ventures, either because equity capital is not available to them or because they want to avoid the ownership dilution and governance constraints associated with equity investments.

    This note focuses on these non-equity sources of financing for entrepreneurs, paying particular attention to how the emergence of new technologies in risk assessment have expanded their availability for young firms.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Financial Services Industry;

    Citation:

    Farre-Mensa, Joan, Ramana Nanda, and Piyush Jain. "Non-Equity Financing for Entrepreneurial Ventures." Harvard Business School Technical Note 814-005, October 2013. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details
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  10. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

    Equity Compensation in Startup Ventures

    Ramana Nanda, Robert White and Stephanie Puzio

    Setting equitable and "market" level compensation for founders and early employees of startups is one of the most important elements of a new venture. It is not only central to attract and retain the best human capital for the startup, but is critical to align incentives between investors and management. This note provides a framework to think about compensation in startup ventures and is intended for entrepreneurs thinking about starting a venture, as well as for employees looking to join a young high-potential startup.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; equity; Finance; Entrepreneurship;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Robert White, and Stephanie Puzio. "Equity Compensation in Startup Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 815-074, March 2015.  View Details
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  11. Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2014

    Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector

    Ramana Nanda and Shikhar Ghosh

    In this note, we examine the extent to which venture capital is adequately positioned for the rapid commercialization of clean energy technologies in the United States. The need for a revolution in clean energy is driven not just by environmental consequences of energy use, but also by the need for energy security, to address growing concerns about a crisis in the balance of payments, and as a potentially important source of domestic jobs. Our premise in this note is that a key aspect of such widespread change is that these issues cannot be "solved" by a single technology. Rather, technological changes will have to be pervasive and will require a whole range of different products and processes to come to market. Some of the technological progress will come from incremental innovations that do not depend on venture capital.

    Keywords: entrepreneurial finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Financial Services Industry;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector." Harvard Business School Technical Note 814-052, March 2014.  View Details
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  12. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2011 (Revised June 2011)

    Government Policy and Clean-Energy Finance

    Ramana Nanda, Sanjay Aggarwal and Nilam Ganenthiran

    What leads to market failures in finance of clean energy startups? How do different governments approach this issue?

    Keywords: Government and Politics; Finance; Policy; Energy Industry;

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, Sanjay Aggarwal, and Nilam Ganenthiran. "Government Policy and Clean-Energy Finance." Harvard Business School Background Note 811-026, March 2011. (Revised June 2011.)  View Details
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  13. Background Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2011 (Revised March 2013)

    Location Choice for New Ventures: Cities

    William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

    Location choice is a critical decision for entrepreneurs. This note explores how entrepreneurs should think about different city options through a systematic framework that encompasses professional and personal issues. We use the intellectual frameworks of the cluster and industry agglomeration literatures to organize these factors. We then provide some tactical advice and worksheets for entrepreneurs to consider when selecting the location for their new venture.

    Keywords: City; Business Startups;

    Citation:

    Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Location Choice for New Ventures: Cities." Harvard Business School Background Note 811-106, May 2011. (Revised March 2013.)  View Details
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  14. Exercise | August 2015 (Revised August 2017)

    Business Models Problem Set

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman, Robert White and Hunter Ashmore

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, Robert White, and Hunter Ashmore. "Business Models Problem Set." Harvard Business School Exercise 816-016, August 2015. (Revised August 2017.)  View Details
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  15. Exercise | August 2016 (Revised February 2018)

    Entrepreneurial Finance Problem Set

    Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Robert White

    Citation:

    Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Robert White. "Entrepreneurial Finance Problem Set." Harvard Business School Exercise 817-037, August 2016. (Revised February 2018.)  View Details
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Keynote Panels and Presentations

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