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Mémoire
Bachelor thesis

Financing start-ups : processes, criteria and lessons learned from case studies

SONAR|HES-SO

    2013

58 p.

Mémoire de bachelor: Haute école de gestion de Genève, 2013

Start-up
Finances
English Behind every business, there is an idea; for realizing it, investment is needed. This thesis focuses on a particular type of investment, the one related to start-ups and venture capitals. The most brilliant idea will need to have some capital investment to be launched. The difference compared to ongoing businesses is that a new business implies a higher risk, which cannot be measured with the usual criteria used for an existing business. Therefore, investment in start-ups can be analyzed as a special type of investments, which I will describe in this thesis, based on literature review, desk research and real cases studies. I will draw some conclusions and propose some criteria for generic guidelines to help investors as well as entrepreneurs looking for funding. This paper aims to identify the key success factors for successful business stories. Even though it focuses on innovative and futuristic businesses, it can also provide some good advice and tips for entrepreneurs in any type of industry. The analysis will focus on the Venture Capital industry since it is the main source of funding for start-ups, being the most significant and active shareholders of the companies in which they invest and influencing their development strategies. Their investment is known as “risk capital”. While they cannot avoid risk, they assess the level of risk to decide their investment. World-wide recognized companies such as Skype or Microsoft were successful thanks to this type of investment Investments in start-ups are organized in different steps and the period of investment is usually longer than for a traditional investment. They face much higher potential risk, due to the uncertainty associated to the success of the investment, but it also implies a much higher potential yield for the investment. A four-step model is used as a reference for start-ups investments. This thesis analyzes in detail the four phases of the investment process and includes a clear identification of the factors to be considered at each stage. The different types of investors involved in the investment process are described in the first section, illustrated by real life case-studies, with risk venture companies based in Switzerland: Endeavour and Index Ventures. In the following section, real case-studies of start-ups are described, based on personal interviews with the founders of Mindmaze and Aleva Neurotherapeutics. The last section is a guideline for entrepreneurs highlighting the key elements learned during the research.
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
Notes
  • Haute école de gestion Genève
  • Filière économie d'entreprise, orientation International Management
  • hesso:hegge
License
License undefined
Identifiers
  • RERO DOC 209297
  • RERO R007646707
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/314235
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