“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.

Provides an overview of the various facets of venture capital and their related issues. This book surveys venture capital as a research field and explores the various conceptual, theoretical, methodological and geographic aspects. It focuses on the specific environs of venture capital.

Explanations to the inner workings of one of the least understood, but arguably most important, areas of business finance is offered to readers in this engaging volume: venture capital. Venture capitalists provide necessary investment to seed (or startup) companies, but the startup is only the beginning, there is much more to be explored. These savvy investors help guide young entrepreneurs, who likely have little experience, to turn their businesses into the Googles, Facebooks, and Groupons of the world. This book explains the often-complex methods venture capitalists use to value companies and to get the most return on their investments, or ROI. This book is a must-have for any reader interested in the business world.

Discussing the complex history of Silicon Valley and other pioneering centres of venture capital, Lerner uncovers the extent of government influence in prompting growth. He examines the public strategies used to advance new ventures and reveals the common flaws undermining far too many programmes.

Habitual Entrepreneurs examines the scale of habitual entrepreneurship and uses insights from human capital theory and cognitive theories to present a theoretical case for distinguishing between different types of entrepreneurs with reference to their prior business ownership experience.

The study extends the literature on venture capital by examining whether entrepreneur’s choice for an external investor and certain firm characteristics have an impact on venture success or not. The focus is set on the differences in value creation by venture capitalists and business angels for ventures of the high- and low-technology sector. The assessment of a data set including 252 Series A financing rounds by venture capitalist firms, business angels and collaborative investments of both investors conducted between 2005 and 2012 unveils value enhancing aspects for all three financing solutions. Overall, start-ups initially financed by venture capitalist firms perform best with regard to general venture success, whereas start-ups collaboratively supported by venture capitalists and business angels have the highest chances to exit successfully through a trade sale. It becomes further apparent that ventures located in one of the high-technology industries ‘internet’, ‘pharmaceuticals’ and ‘high-tech’, ventures that are longer established in the market and ventures whose Series A financing round was executed more recently indicate an enhanced likelihood of success.