1 Legal aspects of startup financing and venture capital investments Abstract The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze the legal aspects of startup financing, especially with a focus on venture capital investments. As the transaction documentation related to venture capital investments usually contains a significant number of foreign language clauses and provisions, a part of my thesis is dedicated to these clauses and their detailed description using practical examples. The content itself is divided into three parts. The first of them generally defines the companies referred to as startups and their individual development stages. It also answers the question, startups are facing in their beginnings, of choosing the appropriate legal form. The conclusion of the first part is then focused practically on individual methods used for startup valuation. The second part is then focused on the venture capital investment realization and specific transaction documentation associated with capital investment. The beginning of the second part is focused on pre-contractual documentation referred to as the Term Sheet and legal Due Diligence. Subsequently, the Shareholders' Agreement and individual foreign language clauses and provisions are analyzed. Those provisions are part of the Shareholders' Agreement in order...

Tato diplomová práce je zaměřena na financování podnikových činností pomocí rizikového kapitálu v České republice. Práce identifikuje způsoby a prostředky, díky kterým prospívají společnosti, do nichž byl rizikový kapitál investován. Způsoby zvyšování hodnoty podniku, prospěch rizikového kapitálu a další determinanty spolupráce managementu podniku s rizikovými kapitalisty jsou analyzovány pomocí čtyř případových studií z České republiky a Velké Británie. Diplomová práce se také zaměřuje na možnosti zlepšení daňového a právního prostředí České republiky z pohledu institucionálních investorů, jakožto významného zdroje rizikového kapitálu. Výstupem této práce je doporučení na zavedení speciální daňové sazby pro malé a střední společnosti, umožnění penzijním fondům a pojišťovnám investování do fondů rizikového kapitálu a dále zvýšení možnosti daňového odečtu nákladů na výzkum a vývoj. Co se týče výkonnosti managementu po investici rizikového kapitálu, zdůrazněna je důležitost funkce dozorčí rady, neustálé přehodnocování motivačního balíčku pro management a další možnosti, které umožní dosáhnutí zvýšené výkonnosti managementu podniku.

This diploma thesis deals with evaluation of economic development in assigned companies with venture capital and it deals with assessment of this development during the work of investor in these companies. The economic development of assigned companies is observed on the basis of chosen indicators of financial analysis. The theoretical part of this final work is focused on chosen findings concerning financial analysis and venture capital. The analytical part evaluates economic development in assigned companies on the basis of chosen indicators and it includes suggestions concerning improvement of their economic development. The last part compares development of indicators entering the research intention and there are suggestions concerning their further improvement.

This diploma work occupies with the economical evolution of chosen companies, financed by venture capital. The theoretical part will be focused on the problems, bearing on venture capital and on the financial analysis, the evolution of the companies will be reviewed according this. There will be the chosen companies and the results of their financial analysis presented in the analytical part of the diploma work, and thus one year before the investor's entry, in the time of the coexistence and three years after the investor's withdrawal. The evolution by the chosen indicators will be overall compared and the recommended solutions will be presented in the final part of the diploma work.

Unternehmensgründungen sind durch ein hohes Maß an Unsicherheit und durch eine häufige Notwendigkeit externer Beratung gekennzeichnet. Daher ist Smart Capital, als eine spezielle Finanzierungsform, die Kapital und Informationsflüsse in Form von Betreuung und Beratung verbindet, von besonderer Bedeutung für junge Unternehmen. Der empirische Teil der Dissertation analysiert die verschiedenen Typen von Finanziers, die als potentielle Anbieter von Smart Capital angesehen werden sowie regionale Einflüsse auf Finanzierungsbeziehungen im Rahmen von Smart Capital. Des Weiteren wird die Rolle der öffentlichen Hand auf dem Markt für Smart Capital untersucht. Die Analysen machen deutlich, dass viele verschiedene Typen von Finanziers als Anbieter von Smart Capital in Deutschland agieren. Regionale Nähe zwischen dem Investor und den finanzierten Unternehmen spielt dabei jedoch nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Eine regionale Unterversorgung an Smart Capital für junge Unternehmen ist unter diesem Aspekt nicht zu befürchten. Des Weiteren zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass öffentlich geförderte Anbieter von Smart Capital ihre Förderfunktion im Wesentlichen erfüllen.

Background and Purpose: In the past years, Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) investments have substantially gained relevance. Corporations engage in this practice to reap strategic benefits that are usually only associated with entrepreneurial ventures and thereby drive innovation. While the success of CVC investments is undisputed, scholars have failed to provide a full description of the process that leads to the creation of strategic value for corporations. Therefore, we want to investigate the strategic value creation process in CVC and build a comprehensive framework thereof. The research question is thus: What is the process through which corporations create strategic value in CVC investments? Methodology: In line with pragmatism, we chose the methods best suited to answer the research question: Primary data will be obtained in face to face interviews with key individuals involved in the strategic value creation process in Husqvarna Group Ventures. Following methods from Morse (1994) and Alvesson & Kärreman (2011), we then analyse the data in a dialogue with our frame of reference. After the identification of a breakdown, an unexpected result that cannot be explained by current academia, we continue to build the framework applying two interpretive repertoires. To do so, we combine our findings with the fragmented existing literature to depict the strategic value creation process. Findings: We find that scholars have overlooked the complexity of the knowledge transfer, which is an integral part of strategic value creation. The CVC unit cannot directly access knowledge in their portfolio firms; instead, an active and involved effort needs to be made by the corporate to create learning opportunities, which can then be transformed into strategic value. The key to accessing knowledge can be found in what we call the knowledge sharing mechanism: An intricate interplay of relationships between the CVC unit and the portfolio firm. We find that corporates significantly commit to activities to build an environment that facilitates voluntary, reciprocal knowledge sharing. Conclusion: Business units must establish and maintain interpersonal relationships with their portfolio firms to meet corporate objectives of innovation and strategic value creation through CVC. The relationship acts a channel for the knowledge transfer, and by extension, as an enabler of strategic value creation. We fill a gap in the existing literature and provide an all-encompassing framework depicting the strategic value creation process of CVC investments with a focus on the relationships between the CVC unit and the portfolio firm. Researchers have neglected this aspect until now.

Under de senaste åren har risk kapitalmarknaderna stått inför flera signifikanta problem. Den svenska VC industrin har minskat med över 60 % sedan Dotcom-kraschen. Antalet aktiva VC- företag har minskat i antal från 100-200 till endast 5-10 större VC-företag. Jämför man dagens marknad med hur den såg ut innan Dotcom-kraschen, så fanns det betydligt fler aktiva företag inom den svenska VC-industrin. Nya finansieringsformer har trätt in på marknaden som bland annat Evergreen fonder och crowd-funding. Den svenska VC-industrin har kännetecknats av en "rensning" av marknaden var tionde år, och var femte år uppstår en mindre krasch på marknaden. De svenska riskkapitalaktörerna har tagit en högre risk än vad som faktiskt var motiverat. Syndikatinvesteringar görs för att undvika investerarnas enskilda risk. Detta fenomen kan illustreras genom de två lyckosamma Svenska investeringarna, Spotify och iZettle. Riskkapitalmarknaden har varit karakteriserad av legala hinder vilket skapat flera stora problem. Trots detta finns det positiva trender och förändringar som idag genomförs på marknaden. Dett kommer lyfts fram ytterligare i arbetet. Bland annat har det diskuterats att införa ett skatteavdrag vilket anses vara fördelaktigt för riskkapitalbolagen. Detta arbete fokuserar huvudsakligen på de olika finanseringsformerna och de olika marknadsaktörerna. Fokus ligger på utvecklingen av industrin och dess aktuella trender, men även på den kommande framtiden. Studien är baserad på intervjuer med marknadsaktörer och på befintlig forskning vilket ger en god insikt i den Svenska riskkapitalbranschen.

Venture capitalists enter into an investment with the intent of realising a substantial profit on theventure after a number of years; this realisation is usually labelled the exit. The disinvestment decisionis a critical issue in the venture capital industry, as the return of the investment is realised upon exit.There are two important dimensions to the disinvestment decision; how and when to exit.This thesis studies the role of Venture Capital (VC) syndication, and its’ effect on exit dynamics for VCfirms in Sweden. The aspects of syndication will be focused on firm characteristics of investing parties,were the ambition is to provide an analysis of these characteristics and their effect on exit route(Merger and Acquisitions, M&As, and Initial Public Offerings, IPOs) and exit timing. Our statisticalanalysis rely on survival analysis with Competing Risk Models (CRM), which is adequate to model timein one state, when exit is to a number of competing states. These models allow for a joint analysis ofexit type and exit timing, i.e. model durations that end with multiple exits. Specifically, we apply theWeibull distribution with Gamma Frailty.To conduct the study, we have used a self-collected data set of 300 investments derived from 20 VCfirms in Sweden. For each investment, the data includes information relating to a number ofexplanatory variables concerning selected characteristics of the portfolio company and investingparties. Our results reveal that the presence of one or more experienced VC firms in the syndicatewould prolong time to exit and increase the likelihood of exiting through an IPO. We provided evidencethat a larger syndicate size will increase the time to exit and increase the likelihood for exiting throughan IPO. We also provided empirical evidence that foreign investor involvement in a syndicate prolongstime to exit in comparison to investments with only domestic co-investors and should affect exit routeby increasing the probability of an IPO. Finally, we could infer that a match between location of at leastone VC firm in a syndicate and acquirer country will have an increasing effect on time-to-exit, whileincreasing the probability of an exit in that country.We hope that the findings of this thesis will provide scholars and venture capitalists with novel,valuable information on a syndicates’ effect on exit dynamics.

Thesis advisor: Thomas Chemmanur / My dissertation consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, I analyze the impact of firms' innovation success on their corporate financial policies. I hypothesize that innovation success reduces the information asymmetry facing firms and, through the information channel, affects their capital structure and dividend policies. I measure innovation success using the quantity and quality of patents. I show that firms with higher innovation success face lower information asymmetry, measured using analyst coverage, dispersion, and forecast error. Further, I show that firms with higher innovation success have lower leverage ratios; have a greater propensity to issue equity rather than debt; and have lower dividend payout ratios. I establish causality using instrumental variable analyses with patent examiner leniency as an instrument for patent grants. In the second chapter, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur, Xuan Tian, and Qianqian Yu, we analyze the impact of trademarks in entrepreneurial firms' success. We hypothesize that trademarks play two economically important roles for entrepreneurial firms: a “protective” role, leading to better product market performance; and an “informational” role, signaling higher firm quality to investors. We develop testable hypotheses based on the above two roles of trademarks, relating the trademarks held by private firms to the characteristics of venture capital (VC) investment in them, their probability of successful exit, their valuations at their initial public offering (IPO) and in the immediate secondary market; institutional investor IPO participation; post-IPO information asymmetry; and post-IPO operating performance. We test these hypotheses using a large and unique dataset of trademarks held by VC-backed private firms. We establish causality using an instrumental variable (IV) analysis using trademark examiner leniency as the instrument. For private firms, we find that the number of trademarks held by the firm is positively related to the total amount invested by VCs and negatively related to the extent of staging by VCs. We show that the number of trademarks held by a firm increases its probability of successful exit (IPOs or acquisitions). Further, for the subsample of VC-backed firms going public, we show that the number of trademarks held by the firm leads to higher IPO and immediate secondary market firm valuations; greater IPO participation by institutional investors; a lower extent of information asymmetry in the equity market post-IPO; and better post-IPO operating performance. In the third chapter, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur and Jinfei Sheng, we develop testable hypotheses and empirically analyze the effects of outside investors having access to soft information such as online employee ratings from the Glassdoor website on firms' financing and investment policies. We find that higher online employee ratings are associated with larger equity issue announcement effects; a greater propensity to have positive announcement effects and to issue equity rather than debt to raise external financing; higher investment expenditures; greater equity issue participation by institutional investors; and better long-run post-issue operating performance. We establish causality using a difference-in-differences methodology relying on the staggered adoption of anti-SLAPP laws across U.S. states. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

It is generally well understood that venture capital (VC) is an important and significant source of financing for small firms. Questions revolving around the increased likelihood of a firm backed by Venture Capitalists (VCs) to be export oriented have yet to be fully explored. Responding to this research gap, a sample of Canadian VC backed firms is used to compare the performance of Canadian VC firms in terms of facilitating internationalization among their portfolio companies. The particular reference of this study is Export Development Canada (EDC), a crown corporation mandated to promote export among Canadian firms. This research finds that EDC as a VC investor and export-oriented consultant has no association with the increased probability of exporting. Also, stage of the investment does not show any relationship with internationalization. These results run contrary to previous speculation that syndication of VCs increases the probability of internationalization among portfolio firms.