Ramana Nanda

Ramana Nanda is Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance and Academic Lead of the Institute for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London.  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.

For the academic years 2007 through 2020, Ramana was on the full-time faculty of Harvard Business School, most recently as Sarofim-Rock Professor and co-director of the HBS Private Capital Project.  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 philanthropists and investors looking to back "deep tech" entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges.

Working Papers

• Krieger, Joshua, and Ramana Nanda. "Are Transformational Ideas Harder to Fund? Resource Allocation to R&D Projects at a Global Pharmaceutical Firm." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-014, August 2022. View Details
• Malenko, Andrey, Ramana Nanda, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, and Savitar Sundaresan. "Catching Outliers: Committee Voting and the Limits of Consensus when Financing Innovation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-131, June 2021. (Revised January 2023.) View Details
• Cao, Ruiqing, Rembrand Koning, and Ramana Nanda. "Sampling Bias in Entrepreneurial Experiments." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-059, November 2020. (Revised July 2022.) View Details
• Ewens, Michael, Ramana Nanda, and Christopher Stanton. "Founder-CEO Compensation and Selection into Venture Capital-Backed Entrepreneurship." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-119, May 2020. (Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Finance. Revised January 2023.) View Details
• Howell, Sabrina T., Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda, and Richard Townsend. "How Resilient Is Venture-Backed Innovation? Evidence from Four Decades of U.S. Patenting." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-115, May 2020. (Revised January 2021.) View Details
• 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
• 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 July 2020.) View Details

Journal Publications and Edited Volumes

• Kerr, Sari Pekkala, William R. Kerr, and Ramana Nanda. "House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data." Journal of Monetary Economics 130 (September 2022): 103–119. View Details
• Jensen, Thais Laerkholm, Søren Leth-Petersen, and Ramana Nanda. "Financing Constraints, Home Equity and Selection into Entrepreneurship." Journal of Financial Economics 145, nos. 2, Part A (August 2022): 318–337. View Details
• Janeway, William, Ramana Nanda, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Venture Capital Booms and Startup Financing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-116, April 2021. (Forthcoming in Annual Review of Financial Economics.) View Details
• Lerner, Josh, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn." Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 237–261. View Details
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, Sampsa Samila, and Olav Sorenson. "The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital." Journal of Financial Economics 137, no. 1 (July 2020): 231–248. View Details
• Comin, Diego, and Ramana Nanda. "Financial Development and Technology Diffusion." IMF Economic Review 67, no. 2 (June 2019): 395–419. View Details
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Financing Risk and Innovation." Management Science 63, no. 4 (April 2017): 901–918. View Details
• 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
• 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
• Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing Innovation." Annual Review of Financial Economics 7 (2015): 445–462. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Financing Experiments." Science 348, no. 6240 (June 12, 2015). View Details
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. "Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation." Journal of Financial Economics 110, no. 2 (November 2013): 403–418. View Details
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and Jesper B. Sorensen. "Workplace Peers and Entrepreneurship." Management Science 56, no. 7 (July 2010): 1116–1126. View Details
• 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
• 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

Book Chapters

• Nanda, Ramana. "Financing 'Tough Tech' Innovation." Chap. 5 in Global Innovation Index 2020: Who Will Finance Innovation? 13th edition, edited by Soumitra Dutta, Bruno Lanvin, and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, 113–119. Cornell University, 2020. Electronic. View Details
• 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
• Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing Constraints and Entrepreneurship." Chap. 8 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
• 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
• 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

Policy Reports and Practitioner-Orientated Publications

• Bussgang, Jeffrey J., and Ramana Nanda. "The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings." Harvard Business Review (website) (November 7, 2018). View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Liz Kind. "Is a Start-Up's Strength Becoming Its Weakness?" Harvard Business Review 93, no. 11 (November 2015). View Details
• 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
• 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
• 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

Cases

• Nanda, Ramana, Abhishek Nagaraj, and Allison Ciechanover. "SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service." Harvard Business School Case 821-082, February 2021. (Revised May 2021.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Benjamin N. Roth, and Olivia Hull. "Prime Coalition: Catalytic Capital for Climate Innovation." Harvard Business School Case 820-007, February 2020. (Revised March 2020.) View Details
• Bernstein, Shai, Ramana Nanda, and Allison Ciechanover. "NewView Capital and Venture Capital Secondaries." Harvard Business School Case 820-038, October 2019. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
• 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 December 2020.) View Details
• Ghosh, Shikhar, Ramana Nanda, Rachna Tahilyani, and Shweta Bagai. "Chai Point: Disrupting Chai." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 819-130, April 2019. View Details
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, Raffaella Sadun, and Olivia Hull. "Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance." Harvard Business School Case 719-403, October 2018. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Eren Kuzucu. "Financing Anghami's Growth." Harvard Business School Case 819-033, July 2018. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Robert White. "Venture Capital Term Sheets." Harvard Business School Exercise 818-137, June 2018. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 818-706, July 2018. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 818-099, June 2018. View Details
• Khanna, Tarun, Ramana Nanda, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Mytrah Energy." Harvard Business School Case 818-021, February 2018. View Details
• Ghosh, Shikhar, Ramana Nanda, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Chai Point: Disrupting Chai." Harvard Business School Case 818-020, September 2017. (Revised March 2018.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Liz Kind. "AngelList in 2017." Harvard Business School Case 818-041, October 2017. (Revised December 2017.) View Details
• 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
• 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
• White, Robert F., Ramana Nanda, and Olivia Hull. "Lovepop." Harvard Business School Case 818-015, October 2017. (Revised November 2017.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Weinzierl. "Financing Astroscale." Harvard Business School Case 817-025, November 2016. (Revised May 2017.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert White, and Lauren G. Pickle. "Square, Inc. IPO." Harvard Business School Case 817-054, November 2016. (Revised February 2017.) View Details
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Nicole Keller. "Western Technology Investment." Harvard Business School Case 817-019, September 2016. (Revised April 2018.) View Details
• Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew, Ramana Nanda, and Nathaniel Burbank. "Founder Field Day." Harvard Business School Case 815-101, February 2015. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Stephanie Puzio. "Fast Ion Battery." Harvard Business School Case 815-025, September 2014. (Revised March 2015.) View Details
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and Liz Kind. "AngelList." Harvard Business School Case 814-036, September 2013. (Revised November 2013.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Lauren Barley. "NOWaccount." Harvard Business School Case 814-048, October 2013. (Revised August 2016.) View Details
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Getit." Harvard Business School Case 813-178, May 2013. (Revised June 2014.) View Details
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, and James McQuade. "Owen's Precision Machining." Harvard Business School Case 813-036, July 2012. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana. "H-Soft Mumbai." Harvard Business School Case 812-168, May 2012. (Revised October 2012.) View Details
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Markus Mittermaier. "inge watertechnologies, GmbH." Harvard Business School Case 812-002, October 2011. (Revised June 2014.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, William R. Kerr, and Lauren Barley. "PunchTab, Inc." Harvard Business School Case 812-033, October 2011. (Revised August 2017.) View Details
• Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "PunchTab, Inc. Investor Presentation Deck." Harvard Business School PowerPoint Supplement 817-705, November 2016. View Details
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Lassiter, Joseph B., III, Ramana Nanda, and David Kiron. "1366 Technologies." Harvard Business School Case 810-005, October 2009. (Revised June 2010.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Toby E. Stuart. "KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy." Harvard Business School Case 809-092, March 2009. (Revised July 2009.) View Details
• Khanna, Tarun, and Ramana Nanda. "ICICI's Global Expansion." Harvard Business School Case 706-426, September 2005. (Revised September 2006.) View Details

Technical and Module Notes

• Khanna, Tarun, Ramana Nanda, Benjamin N. Roth, and Brian Trelstad. "Impact Investment, Catalytic Capital and Blended Finance." Harvard Business School Technical Note 321-078, September 2020. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
• 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
• 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
• Sahlman, William A., Ramana Nanda, and Robert F. White. "Evaluating Start Ups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-039, August 2018. View Details
• Kerr, William R., Ramana Nanda, and James McQuade. "Entrepreneurship Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures." Core Curriculum Readings Series. Harvard Business Publishing 8072, 2014. View Details
• Kerr, William R., and Ramana Nanda. "Financing New Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 811-093, March 2011. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana. "Experimentation and Real Options in Entrepreneurial Finance." Harvard Business School Module Note 815-056, March 2015. (Revised October 2015.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana. "Multi-Stage Financing of High-Potential Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 815-112, March 2015. View Details
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, Robert White, and Stephanie Puzio. "Equity Compensation in Startup Ventures." Harvard Business School Background Note 815-074, March 2015. View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, and Shikhar Ghosh. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector." Harvard Business School Technical Note 814-052, March 2014. View Details
• 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
• 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
• Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, Robert White, and Hunter Ashmore. "Business Models Problem Set." Harvard Business School Exercise 816-016, August 2015. (Revised May 2021.) View Details
• Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Robert White. "Entrepreneurial Finance Problem Set." Harvard Business School Exercise 817-037, August 2016. (Revised August 2020.) View Details

Awards & Honors

Selected for a 2017 Schulze Distinguished Professorship.

Winner of the 2015 Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, awarded annually to one scholar under age 40 whose research has made a significant contribution to the literature in entrepreneurship.

Won 2012 World Finance Conference Best Paper for "Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation" with Matthew Rhodes-Kropf.

Awarded the 2009-2010 Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research.

Received the 2005-2006 Kauffman Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Award.

Awarded a GBI-Stern Aspen Foundation Grant in 2004 for research on the Indian software industry.

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
Industries
• banking
• biotechnology
• energy
• financial services
• green technology
• microfinance
• nonprofit industry
• venture capital industry
Geographies
• Asia
• Denmark
• Europe
• India
• Mexico
• North America
• United States