Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,0, Technical University of Darmstadt (Department of Banking and Finance), course: Venture Capital and Private Equity, language: English, abstract: In the last decades venture capital has emerged as the major source of financing for young and innovative firms, replacing more and more bank credits, but also creating a new market niche for start-ups with a high risk of failure that may create substantial returns. With success stories of companies like Apple Computer, Intel, Federal Express, Microsoft, Sun Mircosystem, Compaq or SAP, this form of funding is meanwhile widely accepted. In the late 1970s the venture capital industry increased dramatically in the United States. In contrast, the venture capital sector in continental Europe used to be a very small market up to 1990. Figure 1 in the appendix shows the development of funds committed to independent US and European venture capital funds.1Today the venture fund market in Germany has reached a managed fund size of US$ 43 billion, an increase of 13.2 percent in regard to the previous year.2Therefore venture capital plays a crucial role in respect to innovation of an economy and has significant positive effects on society and a country’s economy. According to Sahlmann (1990) the term “venture capital” is defined as a “professional managed pool of capital that is invested in equity linked securities of private ventures at various stages in their development”. Gompers and Lerner (2001a) limit the definition to investments in privately held, high growth companies. Originally, the intent of venture capital is to finance young innovative companies. The term private equity describes the investment of equity in companies that are already established, e.g. companies in later stages of their life cycle. Today the two terms are often used as synonyms. In this paper we keep focusing on companies in early stages of life and thus use the term venture capital only. It should be mentioned that the focus of venture capital firms can be quite different. First venture capitalists can concentrate on different stages of companies (seed, start-up, first, second, third, fourth stage, bridge stage and liquidity stage financing) and second, venture capitalist can finance different industries or focus on a special group. The specialization has the advantage to gather deepened technological knowledge about an industry that can be used within the “venture cycle”. The innovative high-tech sectors, such as biotech or nanotech, would be good examples.

Other books present corporate finance approaches to the venture capital and private equity industry, but many key decisions require an understanding of the ways that law and economics work together. This revised and updated 2e offers broad perspectives and principles not found in other course books, enabling readers to deduce the economic implications of specific contract terms. This approach avoids the common pitfalls of implying that contractual terms apply equally to firms in any industry anywhere in the world. In the 2e, datasets from over 40 countries are used to analyze and consider limited partnership contracts, compensation agreements, and differences in the structure of limited partnership venture capital funds, corporate venture capital funds, and government venture capital funds. There is also an in-depth study of contracts between different types of venture capital funds and entrepreneurial firms, including security design, and detailed cash flow, control and veto rights. The implications of such contracts for value-added effort and for performance are examined with reference to data from an international perspective. With seven new or completely revised chapters covering a range of topics from Fund Size and Diseconomies of Scale to Fundraising and Regulation, this new edition will be essential for financial and legal students and researchers considering international venture capital and private equity. - An analysis of the structure and governance features of venture capital contracts - In-depth study of contracts between different types of venture capital funds and entrepreneurial firms - Presents international datasets from over 40 countries around the world - Additional references on a companion website - Contains sample contracts, including limited partnership agreements, term sheets, shareholder agreements, and subscription agreements

Private equity-backed companies are ubiquitous and economically significant. Consequently, the corporate governance of these companies matters to all of us, and – not surprisingly – is coming under increasing scrutiny. Simon Witney, a practicing private equity lawyer, positions private equity portfolio companies within existing academic theory and examines the laws that apply to them in the UK. He analyses the actual governance frameworks that are put in place and identifies problems created by the legal rules – as well as the market's solutions to them. This book not only explains why these governance mechanisms are established, but also what they are expected to achieve. Witney suggests that private equity owners have both the incentives and the capability to focus on responsible investment practices. Good governance, he argues, is a critical success factor for the private equity industry.

Karoline Jung-Senssfelder presents the first augmented contracting analysis, focusing on the interaction of both, financial instruments and covenants, in the creation of incentives to the contracting parties. With a focus on the German market, she integrates the findings of her model-based theoretical and survey-based empirical analyses to derive value-adding implications for an incentive-compatible contract design in the German venture capital market.

“An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” —New Yorker “An excellent and original economic history of venture capital.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “A detailed, fact-filled account of America’s most celebrated moneymen.” —New Republic “Extremely interesting, readable, and informative...Tom Nicholas tells you most everything you ever wanted to know about the history of venture capital, from the financing of the whaling industry to the present multibillion-dollar venture funds.” —Arthur Rock “In principle, venture capital is where the ordinarily conservative, cynical domain of big money touches dreamy, long-shot enterprise. In practice, it has become the distinguishing big-business engine of our time...[A] first-rate history.” —New Yorker VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from America’s longstanding identification with entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Whether the venture is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the latest Silicon Valley startup, VC is a state of mind as much as a way of doing business, exemplified by an appetite for seeking extreme financial rewards, a tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a faith in the promise of innovation to generate new wealth. Tom Nicholas’s authoritative history takes us on a roller coaster of entrepreneurial successes and setbacks. It describes how iconic firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia invested in Genentech and Apple even as it tells the larger story of VC’s birth and evolution, revealing along the way why venture capital is such a quintessentially American institution—one that has proven difficult to recreate elsewhere.

The primary objective of this book is to demonstrate that a firm's financing decisions depend among other things on bargaining power considerations, and to illustrate potential causes for this dependency. Based on a principal-agent analysis where a lender (principal) and a firm (agent) bargain over the financing of the firm’s risky project, the author illustrates and analyzes the importance of bargaining power on finance decisions.

The term private equity typically includes investments in venture capital or growth investment, as well as late stage, mezzanine, turnaround (distressed), and buyout investments. It typically refers to the asset class of equity securities in companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange. However, private equity funds do in fact make investments in publicly held companies, and some private equity funds are even publicly listed. Chapters in this book cover both private and public company investments, as well as private and publicly listed private equity funds. This Handbook provides a comprehensive picture of the issues surrounding the structure, governance, and performance of private equity. It comprises contributions from 41 authors based in 14 different countries. The book is organized into seven parts, the first of which covers the topics pertaining to the structure of private equity funds. Part II deals with the performance and governance of leveraged buyouts. Part III analyzes club deals in private equity, otherwise referred to as syndicated investments with multiple investors per investees. Part IV provides analyses of the real effects of private equity. Part V considers the financial effects of private equity. Part VI provides analyzes of listed private equity. Finally, Part VII provides international perspectives on private equity.