This useful guide walks venture capitalists through the principles of finance and the financial models that underlie venture capital decisions. It presents a new unified treatment of investment decision making and mark-to-market valuation. The discussions of risk-return and cost-of-capital calculations have been updated with the latest information. The most current industry data is included to demonstrate large changes in venture capital investments since 1999. The coverage of the real-options methodology has also been streamlined and includes new connections to venture capital valuation. In addition, venture capitalists will find revised information on the reality-check valuation model to allow for greater flexibility in growth assumptions.

Venture capital (VC) refers to investments provided to early-stage, innovative, and high growth start-up companies. A common characteristic of all venture capital investments is that investee companies do not have cash flows to pay interest on debt or dividends on equity. Rather, investments are made with a view towards capital gain on exit. The most sought after exit routes are an initial public offering (IPO), where a company lists on a stock exchange for the first time, and an acquisition exit (trade sale), where the company is sold in entirety to another company. However, VCs often exit their investments by secondary sales, wherein the entrepreneur retains his or her share but the VC sells to another company or investor buybacks, where the entrepreneur repurchases the VC`s interest and write-offs (liquidations). The Oxford Handbook of Venture Capital provides a comprehensive picture of all the issues dealing with the structure, governance, and performance of venture capital from a global perspective. The handbook comprises contributions from 55 authors currently based in 12 different countries.

Our innovation economy is broken. But there's good news: The ideas that will solve our problems are hiding in plain sight. While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the world's population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious. In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter don't see the light of day—for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls "two-pocket thinkers"—artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit. The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What's more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through "one-pocket thinking"—eliminating the blind spot that separates "what we do for a living" and "what we really care about."

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.

“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.

Better Venture is a first-of-its-kind guide to diversity and inclusion in startups and venture capital—who funds, who gets funded, and how the industry can change. The industry’s lack of diversity and inclusion not only compromises moral standing—it means overlooking profitable businesses and talented founders. That costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and neglects ideas that could serve the needs of many more people. In this collection of interviews, stories, and research, we use the momentum that has been building in recent years to expand the conversation about DEI, venture capital, and the startup ecosystem, and to inspire more concrete action. Highlights: - 43 in-depth conversations with leading investors, entrepreneurs, and researchers, making it one of the most comprehensive and diverse sets of perspectives on the startup ecosystem ever assembled in one place. - An economic history of venture capital through a diversity lens. - On-the-ground stories from founders and VCs that explore ways to create a more diverse, inclusive, equitable, and profitable venture ecosystem. No blog post can give the deep understanding and vision needed to address the complexity of the topic. That’s why we came together to write this book and are bringing in so many voices to clarify the picture of what is and what could be. Over the course of two years of research and discussion with almost 100 experts, we set out to answer four questions: - Why has the industry been so slow to change? We map the economic origins and history of venture capital to understand how the economics of VC has contributed to the glacial pace of diversifying the industry. - What barriers are founders and investors facing now? We draw on contributions from investors, operators, founders, and journalists to help catalog the barriers for founders seeking funding, and for investors seeking entry and influence in the industry. - Can diversity really lead to higher returns? We bring in new research and data to help us understand how betting on underrepresented founders and investors is really the better venture. Why does diversifying the industry matter, and to whom? How is it linked to financial performance and better decision making? How will it improve innovation across industries? - What can be done for positive change? We discuss cost effective and evidence-based interventions, tools, and solutions that can help to make the VC and startup worlds more diverse and inclusive—and result in higher returns. We hope this book and the conversations it contains help fulfill the vision of a more diverse, inclusive, and profitable ecosystem. It’s time venture got better.

Innovation and Venture Capital Law and Policy examines the Australian innovation system, focusing on the broad range of government programs that have been introduced over the years to foster innovation and encourage venture capital investment in entrepreneurial start-up and early stage companies. It discusses the importance of innovation to a country's economic growth and the critical role that venture capital plays in financing new businesses. The book also looks at the innovation systems in the United States and Israel. Both countries have been selected for comparative purposes as they have highly developed innovation systems and are widely respected as world leaders in venture capital investment.Innovation and Venture Capital Law and Policy has been written as a scholarly monograph that explores these topics in detail. It is designed to be a practical resource for entrepreneurs running start-up and early stage companies, angels and venture capitalists who invest in such companies, staff engaged in university technology transfer offices, and accountants and lawyers who advise these parties. In addition, the book should also be of use to governments and policymakers that are involved in designing and administering innovation and venture capital programs, as well as to scholars and students studying innovation and venture capital law and policy.