Leading Blog

AUGUST 1, 2023

Between founding and running a global digital marketing agency, investing in over forty companies, creating a hit podcast, and launching a venture fund for minority businesses, Bartlett has learned valuable lessons about success and failure, discovering a set of principles that he uses to guide him on his journey from strength to strength.

Books 215

Books Leadership Venture Funding Learning-by-Doing 215

The Horizons Tracker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

These products also had lower rates of venture funding and fewer users. When the performance of these products was assessed over time, they found that female-focused products grew by 40% less than male-focused and gender-neutral products a year after launch. Possible cause.

Entrepreneur 133

Entrepreneur Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Sample 133

CEO Blog

MAY 3, 2012

I contributed a chapter on Venture Funding in an eBook. The more your connections, the greater your influence (according to Klout) and the greater your chance of being retweeted or talked about. Please tweet this blog post and retweet all the @jimestill you can. Oops sorry - forgot rule 3. Wonder if that will improve my Klout score.

How To 140

How To Venture Funding Influence Media 140

The Horizons Tracker

AUGUST 2, 2021

The existing European financial SME instruments for scientific startups needs to be adapted and work more effectively with corporate venture funds so that small experiments in selected regions are supported. Tailor existing investment mechanisms towards tech transfer.

Venture Funding 132

Venture Funding Short-term Long-term Innovation 132

The Horizons Tracker

JUNE 29, 2020

The existing European financial SME instruments for scientific startups needs to be adapted and work more effectively with corporate venture funds so that small experiments in selected regions are supported. “Corporate venturing is becoming a dominant trend among companies.

Venture Funding 98

Venture Funding GDP Incentives Innovation 98

The Horizons Tracker

JULY 21, 2021

They argue for a €100 billion fund that recruits from both public and private sources and aim for a long-term focus. The €10 billion fund aims to back startups with a mixture of grants and equity investments.

Venture Funding 130

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Proposal Media 130

Chartered Management Institute

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

To begin with Board Connect has just four non-profit launch partners – Teach for America, New Schools Venture Fund, Charter Board Partners and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation – but the hope is that this will quickly expand. “Board Connect takes advantage of connecting talent with opportunity and ties in social impact.”.

Venture Funding 73

Venture Funding Execution Tools Kaplan 73

The Horizons Tracker

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Research from INSEAD suggests that the most common way of currently working with a startup is via a corporate venture fund. Successful partnerships. Whilst this is no doubt a valid way of working with a startup, there are other, less expensive avenues you can explore.

Incubator 91

Incubator Entrepreneur Venture Funding Incentives 91

The Horizons Tracker

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

In a bid to stand a better chance against purely for-profit firms, the organization recently shifted from a pure nonprofit to a hybrid structure whereby the founding nonprofit retains the majority of the shares in a for-profit company that can now raise venture funding from investors.

Power 75

Power Ethics Venture Funding Quality 75

Harvard Business Review

JULY 14, 2023

These tactics will bring the company recurring revenue and venture funding more quickly. They recommend starting by using commercial success to prompt small, one-time defense contracts, partnering with existing defense channels, and building a dedicated sales team.

Software 19

Software Venture Funding Marketing Company 19

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

If your business has high velocity, high margins, and a huge market, venture may be a good road for you. There are some helpful resources out there on venture terms , good venture funds vs. bad ones , and questions you may want to ask a venture capitalist if you meet one.

Venture Capitalist 16

Venture Capitalist Advice Venture Funding Incubator 16

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2011

Our IDEAS Ventures fund is a joint arrangement with the National Research Foundation as part of the National Framework for Innovation and Enterprise. The government plays a big role in the city's ecosystem — administering grants and programs that provide financial support for startup companies.

Venture Capitalist 19

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Handbook Entrepreneur 19

Harvard Business Review

MAY 10, 2011

If big companies are to seize more fast-growth opportunities, they can learn from the venture capitalists that back the most successful entrepreneurs. Venture funds create a basic thesis about what industries will grow, and then they place a lot of inexpensive bets and give start-ups leeway.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Entrepreneur IPO 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 27, 2017

There is an enormous gender gap in venture capital funding in the United States. Female entrepreneurs receive only about 2% of all venture funding , despite owning 38% of the businesses in the country.

Venture Capitalist 16

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Venture Funding Quality 16

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 16, 2011

Such a strategy limits an early venture's funding in order to force the business to develop a profitable business model and then invests heavily in growth once such a model is identified — Christensen terms such investments "good money" for incubating growth businesses and extols the strategy for three reasons.

Christensen 22

Christensen Fixed Costs Metrics Business Model 22

Harvard Business Review

JULY 19, 2011

And companies in Accra include venture fund Oasis Capital and agricultural private equity house Injaro Investments. The Nairobi-based firms include banking-software developer Craft Silicon, digital-marketing agency Pamoja Media, call-center operator KenCall, POS vendor Paystream, and online content aggregator A24.

Venture Funding 16

Venture Funding Banking Participative Globalization 16

Harvard Business Review

JULY 25, 2012

In the case of venture-funded companies, which have little operating experience and untested ideas, the bargain is both the idea and the people, with the latter more important than the former. Why, then, destroy one asset to "improve" another?

Venture Capitalist 16

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Gordon CEO 16

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2014

Much of this activity is driven by a handful of highly active funds at firms like Intel, Google, and Qualcomm. But the number of corporate venture funds doing deals each quarter has increased about 50% since 2012. VC dollars, but this year that number has hovered around 30%.

Venture Funding 13

Venture Funding Company Maturity Follow-up 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Two in particular are corporate venture funds, which invest in start-ups outside companies'' walls, and internal idea contests. And corporate venture funds, if well managed, can avoid the fickleness problem that plagues independent venture capital and crowdfunding. It doesn''t have to be this way.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Innovation Incentives 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2012

Whether Facebook IPOs for 80B or 100B, the venture funds that invested prior to 2011 will have plenty of capital to return to their limited partners. They invest millions in the hopes of achieving billions in returns. For every 10 investments, a good firm may have one defining investment, returning hundreds of percent in IRR.

IPO 19

IPO Advertising IRR Venture Funding 19

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2011

Instead, managers of large organizations should try to deploy other approaches that might be more effective, such as the following: Set up a venture group that can fund internal (and external) entrepreneurs who want to start businesses that are related to or adjacent to your core.

Innovation 16

Innovation Company Venture Funding Follow-up 16

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Two in particular are corporate venture funds, which invest in start-ups outside companies’ walls, and internal idea contests. And corporate venture funds, if well managed, can avoid the fickleness problem that plagues independent venture capital and crowdfunding. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Innovation Incentives 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 16, 2012

Big names like Ford and Sears are setting up data labs in the Bay Area and we have just witnessed the launch of Data Collective , a data-only venture fund set up by some of Silicon Valley's leading lights. Big data is enjoying unprecedented attention, with more than $1 billion invested in it in the last year alone.

Venture Funding 16

Venture Funding Price Technology Tactics 16

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Maybe it’s learning that your co-founder is prepared to work with the wrong venture fund or that they’re actively willing to hide bad results from your board. But rest assured: you’ll almost certainly see reality at precisely the worst possible moment for you and the company.

Company 15

Company Venture Funding Banking Education 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 17, 2012

And when innovation programs do get launched, like an internal venture fund or an idea wiki, they tend to either be organizationally isolated or easily marginalized. For industry incumbents, the problem isn't a lack of resources or a shortage of human creativity, but a dearth of pro-innovation values, processes and practices.

Innovation 16

Innovation Process Competitive Advantage McKinsey 16

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 28, 2012

Will lower interest rates make venture capital a more appealing option? According to a PriceWaterhouse Coopers preliminary review , 2012 venture funding has actually declined. Investors looking for higher returns will increasingly look to more. innovative alternatives. Preliminary data suggest not.

Innovation 21

Innovation Trends Human Capital Venture Funding 21

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2017

It’s not all about venture funding. When it is about venture funding, hone in on the best matches. Here are some suggestions that might help accelerator programs in those countries to better support these entrepreneurs. Accelerator programs are most successful when they provide the right help to the right people.

Marketing 12

Marketing Venture Funding Entrepreneur IPO 12

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2014

In January 2014 IBM announced they were spending $1 billion to launch the Watson Group , including a $100 million venture fund to support start-ups and businesses that are building Watson-powered apps using the “ Watson Developers Cloud.”

Venture Funding 15

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Agility Business Model 15

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 29, 2011

For example, IBM , Intel , and other large companies routinely allocate and manage venture funds to invest in startups with new technology that may compete with their own. Also, this competitor will now be a better candidate for merger or acquisition due to the existing relationship, when either of you is ready for that step.

Travel 17

Travel Chief Executive Officer Venture Funding Magazine 17

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2012

Where accelerators fall short is in leading investment rounds deep into the company's lifecycle, the purview of traditional venture funds. Accelerators with a handful of full-time employees and no limited partners will accept dozens of companies each year.

Hedge 16

Hedge Disruptive Innovation Venture Capitalist Venture Funding 16

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2011

So please trust me when I say that one of the biggest roadblocks to job creation is the huge logjam at the patent office that prevents entrepreneurs from getting the patents they need to obtain venture funding.

Entrepreneur 17

Entrepreneur Venture Funding Offshoring Policies 17

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 4, 2014

According to an analysis of venture fund returns by Harvard Business School’s Josh Lerner , more than half of all VC funds delivered no better than low single-digit returns on investment. Worse, only 20 per cent of funds achieved 20 per cent returns (or better), a figure that they might be expected to deliver.

Venture Funding 15

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Incubator Advice 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2016

If the limiting factor for the startup economy is capital, you’d expect newly founded venture funds to generate solid returns. The biggest barrier for most startups isn’t raising that first round of capital — it’s scaling, which in some ways is getting even harder.

Venture Funding 12

Venture Funding IPO Finance Constraint 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2017

According to VentureWell, as of May 2016 the program has trained over 700 teams, which have raised more than $80 million from venture funding, government grants, and other sources. The Future of I-Corps. Today I-Corps is running at full steam. 81% of the entrepreneur teams are still active 13–21 months after taking the course.

Entrepreneur 18

Entrepreneur Venture Funding Conference Course 18

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 29, 2016

The six activities are: 1) Identify entrepreneurs (through things like business plan competitions); 2) Train entrepreneurs (both in schools but also in increasingly common startup training programs like the StartUp Institute and General Assembly); 3) Connect and sustain entrepreneurs (through meet-ups or entrepreneur organizations, as well as incubators, (..)

Incubator 15

Incubator Entrepreneur Venture Funding Policies 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2011

We tried it at the NewSchools Venture Fund, where I used to work. The user interface is outmoded, and the new app or feature that everyone else has just costs too much to add. That's no way to build a market. Yet there is a third way.

Education 16

Education Innovation Entrepreneur Venture Funding 16

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

Kirk and his two cofounders Neehar Giri and Nathan Krishnan had earlier done a venture-funded startup called Nextance. It raised $60 million in venture capital, and eventually failed. I routinely meet companies that are growing smartly by leveraging platforms provided by big companies.

Business Incubator 11

Business Incubator Incubator Company Merchandising 11