In the venture capital (VC) industry, firms often co-invest with other peers in syndicated deals. The process of syndication is a form of investment alliance that generates networks of VC firms and start-up companies. Despite the prominent role played by syndicates, extant entrepreneurship literature found contradicting evidence on the relationship between the practice of syndication and the performance of both the start-up and the investors. In fact, our understanding of the circumstances under which syndicates have the potential to boost performance, rather than hamper them, is still limited. This book intends to fill this gap and explore the performance dynamics surrounding networks in the venture capital industry. The text also provides introductory knowledge to those interested in network studies and methods.

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.

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller! What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation? If Silicon Valley is the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world, Sand Hill Road is its humming engine. That's where you'll find the biggest names in venture capital, including famed VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, where lawyer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-VC Scott Kupor serves as managing partner. Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Kupor explains, for instance: • Why most VCs typically invest in only one startup in a given business category. • Why the skill you need most when raising venture capital is the ability to tell a compelling story. • How to handle a "down round," when startups have to raise funds at a lower valuation than in the previous round. • What to do when VCs get too entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business. • Why you need to build relationships with potential acquirers long before you decide to sell. Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.

In the venture capital (VC) industry, firms often co-invest with other peers in syndicated deals. The process of syndication is a form of investment alliance that generates networks of VC firms and start-up companies. Despite the prominent role played by syndicates, extant entrepreneurship literature found contradicting evidence on the relationship between the practice of syndication and the performance of both the start-up and the investors. In fact, our understanding of the circumstances under which syndicates have the potential to boost performance, rather than hamper them, is still limited. Previous literature suggested that syndicates improve the access to resources for both the entrepreneurs and the VC partners. However, syndicates, as opposed to solo investments, carry agency costs such as free riding and conflicts of interests among co-investors. I investigate the role of syndicates on performance building upon network and alliance literature. Recent studies show that syndicates, networks, and alliances have the potential to be both an asset and a liability for the focal actor. This applies to the amount of connections that a firm has, the structure of its network, or the composition of the alliance. I apply a contingency perspective to investigate the boundary conditions under which syndication exerts a positive rather than a negative effect on performance. I test theoretical claims at three levels of analysis: at the start-up level, at the VC investors' level, and the syndicate level.

The book emphasizes research in economics and management of networks as an interdisciplinary field by offering new theoretical perspectives and presenting new empirical results on strategic and governance structure issues in cooperatives, franchising networks, alliances, joint ventures and venture capital relations. The authors apply different theoretical views on networks, such as transaction cost theory, property rights theory, resource- and knowledge-based theory, evolutionary theory, information richness theory and social exchange theory.

After an introduction to the subject area and a concise treatment of the technical foundations for the subsequent chapters, this book features 14 chapters on state-of-the-art graph drawing software systems, ranging from general "tool boxes'' to customized software for various applications. These chapters are written by leading experts: they follow a uniform scheme and can be read independently from each other. The text covers many industrial applications.

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