<p>CleanTech is the sector where technologies intended to reduce the harmful effect that our current lifestyle has on the environment are found. In Sweden the companies developing these technologies has not yet managed to get their deserved part of Swedish venture capital. A number of venture capitalists do invest in CleanTech, however the majority is hesitant. The hesitation is to a large extent said to be born in the many risks associated to a CleanTech investment. This thesis attempts to address this issue by describing and analyzing how venture capitalists reduce risks when investing in a CleanTech company. An abductive approach has been used to conduct the study, mainly based on primary, qualitative data. The data was gathered through six face-to-face interviews with Swedish venture capitalists active within the CleanTech sector.</p><p>The different risks expected to be found in a CleanTech investment are first presented grouped into three broad risks groups; Agency risk, Business risk and Innovation risk. This is followed by a framework covering methods and tools that can be applied by venture capitalists in an attempt to reduce risks in their investments. These being; Convertible equity, Syndication, Information system, Monitoring, Milestones, Bonding, Share options, Stage financing and Intellectual property rights.</p><p>The respondents do not view the risks associated to CleanTech as high as generally perceived. They acknowledge that the risks exists but not to any larger extent than in any other investment. When reducing risk in their investment the respondents make use of commonly known and generally used methods and tools. These are not deliberately chosen in order to reduce a specific risk but rather to safeguard the investment as a whole. It is not just the tools in themselves that leads to a successful reduction of risk, but rather when combined with the respondent’s as well as the entrepreneurs skills and experiences.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

All venture capital investments exhibit some form of asymmetric information. The seminal paper on the structure of venture investments, Kaplan and Stromberg (2004), investigates how venture capitalists use deal construction to control agency conflicts within funded deals and their associated internal, external and execution risks. Another key strand of the academic literature has reviewed the contractual arrangements venture capital firms reach, the process of venture capital selection and determinants of their success from a post-investment perspective (Fried and Hisrich (1994), Manigart, Vermeir and Sapienza (1996), Gompers and Lerner (2004), Wright and Robbie (1998)). This thesis also explores venture capital investment, albeit from a preinvestment standpoint. In contrast to Kaplan and Stromberg???s (2004) demonstration of the use of venture capital mechanisms to control agency issues, this research addresses how agency issues influence the final selection of potential investments by venture capitalists. Kaplan and Stromberg (2004) use post-funding metrics to capture risks, which influence post-contract design. From a pre-funding perspective, internal, external and execution risks are subjective, rare and difficult to measure. Nevertheless, this thesis uses pre-funding proxies to replicate these risks, some of which have direct empirical academic support. Information for sixtytwo deals, thirty-four funded and twenty-eight unfunded, was hand collected through a combination of surveys, interviews and consultation with five of Australia???s leading venture capital firms, and individuals from the Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL) board and executive. The key results indicate that once past initial screening stages, investment proposals that have a higher likelihood of receiving venture investment are those that had prior government investment, and/or, where the entrepreneur has proposed the investment be through milestone tranches and where revenue is already being generated (for early stage ventures). The results suggest that venture capitalists tend to allocate capital to investments perceived as ???safer??? with respect to agency conflicts. More specifically, venture capitalists are more reliant on signals of quality and lower risk, such as government grants, restriction of capital outlay and prior revenue generation ??? all of which reduce associated levels of internal and execution risk in new ventures.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-148).

Dissertation--Technische Universität Dresden, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation, Universität München, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--George Mason University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-133).

Dissertation--Technische Universität Dresden, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D.Biotech.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T11:13:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_8048_DISSERTAÇÃO RICARDO PDF20150204-162139.pdf: 1127592 bytes, checksum: 7437860eba5aa55cef7c2231f2d83646 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-21 / O estudo tem por objetivo avaliar os fatores que possam explicar a captação de recursos (fundraising) dos fundos de Private Equity e Venture Capital (PE/VC). Em linhas gerais, a proposta é averiguar empiricamente quais são os fatores que impactam na captação de recursos pelos fundos de PE/VC. A amostra foi formada por 25 países e em um espaço temporal de 6 anos (2006-2011). Foram identificados seis fatores: atividade econômica, desenvolvimento do mercado de capitais, governança corporativa, desenvolvimento socioambiental, empreendedorismo e tributação. Assim, construiu-se através de Análise Fatorial seis fatores que foram compostos por 26 variáveis. Por meio de regressão múltipla foram investigadas as relações entre a captação de recursos por parte dos fundos PE/VC e os fatores gerados. Os resultados demonstraram que apesar dos fatores testados serem significativos, a captação dos recursos reage drasticamente ao quão desenvolvido é o mercado de capitais.