Investors and Funding

In industries seeing stagnant growth or a negative impact from uncontrollable, outside forces, many companies are turning to corporate venture capital as an alternative means to innovation. Yet, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson once said that corporate venture capital was the “devil.”

The amount of money pouring into Agrifood tech has increased more than sixfold since 2012: from $3 billion to almost $18 billion. In the first part of this series, we examine the three changing conditions making this field ripe for innovation and analyze emerging technologies.

Since the introduction of index funds in the 1970s, the investment management industry has embraced the use of software to enhance its decision-making. With robo-advisors reaching further prominence, will machines replace humans in the world of wealth management?

Entrepreneurs have been hardcoded to aim at billion-dollar sized markets with their solutions. However, such lucrative markets will appeal to many others and thus, are hard to succeed in. Going after smaller market sizes may be the more logical path to success.

Tech firms have enjoyed a deluge of funding in the last few years. Fintech is no exception. Now is the time to see which companies are here to stay and can become profitable - there will be some necessary consolidation and perhaps some high-profile failures.

Toptal Management Consultant and fundraising guru Jeffrey Fidelman put together a list of the top 5 pitch deck mistakes he sees most often. Within these common mistakes, Fidelman also highlights best practices and shows you how to write a perfect pitch deck.

Waterfalls are an integral part of real estate investment terms, dictating the hierarchy of how cash is distributed to investors and the transaction’s sponsors. When structured correctly—with aligned incentives—they ensure that the deal is set up to achieve outsize success.

How do you value a startup or a scaleup? This is a question that plagues both founders and investors. Arriving at a figure all parties can agree upon is not very straightforward: ultimately, valuation is more of an art than a science.

Family Offices are becoming increasingly popular and prominent in investment circles. Their rise is due to changing economic conditions and the increased flexibility and control that families wish to exert with their capital.

Will electric airplanes dramatically reduce fuel costs, save the environment, and jumpstart the dying regional industry? In this article, we examine why electric airplanes are having their moment in the sun. We size the market, take bets on the winning players, investigate the challenges in current technologies, and take a guess at when you’ll be flying in an electric plane.

Business value is much more than just the sum of discounted future cash flows. There are strategic elements related to equity control that also determine true worth. These factors manifest through control, liquidity, marketability, and synergistic discounts and premiums.

For many years, the IPO market appeared dormant. 2019, however, is bucking the trend with a large number of high-profile tech companies going live on stock exchanges. Not all of these IPOs have been successes. What is the process and what determines success (or lack thereof)?

One of the most notable developments of recent years has been the boom in veganism. The Beyond Meat Company’s IPO in May 2019 captured this zeitgeist and is one of the stand-out financial events of the year. Can the company live up to the hype and satisfy its investors?

Fully leveraged buyouts are among the most mythical and highly touted transactions on Wall Street. Yet, their success is predicated on successful comprehension of a business’s potential and the ability to negotiate the right terms for a deal.

As a founder, how should you fund your startup? Bootstrapping and venture capital both come with advantages and limitations, but this framework can help you compare the two options and make the best decision for your business.

Over the past decade, venture capital funding has risen by 17% annually to a figure $254 billion. What factors have contributed to this surge and what do they mean for the industry going forward?