The problem that most, if not all, large companies deal with in one way or another, is to stay relevant and competitive as their industry evolves. They need to keep improving their current services or products but still need to keep their eyes open for disruption. This requires them to make long-term investments in research and development, which does not always result in a quick return. To stay relevant, corporations need to increase corporate innovation. Research on collaboration between startups and corporations has grown substantially in recent years, but there is a gap in academic literature focusing on the barriers of these collaborations. This qualitative study focuses on what perspective Icelandic corporate managers have towards collaborating with startups as part of their corporate innovation. To accomplish that, eight semi- structured interviews with top-level managers from large corporations were conducted. It was clear that all interviewees were very positive about collaborating with startups even though most of them had little or no experience from doing so themselves. Icelandic companies seem to be reluctant to invest the required time and resources it takes for these collaborations to be successful because of the lack of successful examples in Iceland so far. This research only looked at the barriers and benefits from the perspective of top-level managers in large corporations but future research could include the perspective of startups as well.

This thesis examines the governance framework of two Venture Capital funds within the Private Equity industry; EQT Ventures II and Norrsken22. Building upon the research of Appelbaum and Batt (2021) concerning the general and limited partner relationship asymmetries of power, information, and incentives, the study further audits the imbalances from the perspective of the funds' general partners. An empirical basis was formed by conducting two interviews with suitable representatives from EQT, along with one interview and a governance document with Norrsken22. The paper finds that both are actively working on reducing asymmetries on a strategic and operating level. EQT has divisions and digital tools whose primary purpose is to bridge information gaps, a comprehensive due diligence process to increase the understanding of the power balance, and a financial framework to ensure that conflicts of interest are avoided. Norrsken22 tries to involve their Limited Partners in their operational work by creating a community of Limited Partners, thus bringing them closer to the General Partner role. The study could have involved a Limited Partner perspective instead of limiting the scope to the company's and General Partners' thoughts. Regardless, it depicts an inside perspective of the asymmetries shown and the counteractions initiated in response, a perspective not previously explored in academic papers. / Denna avhandling undersöker styrningsramen för två riskkapitalfonder inom Private Equity-branschen: EQT Ventures II och Norrsken22. Med utgångspunkt i Appelbaum och Batts (2021) forskning om asymmetrierna i förhållandet mellan fondförvaltare och investerare när det gäller makt, information och incitament, granskas dessa obalanser ytterligare i studien ur fondernas generalägares perspektiv. En empirisk grund bildades genom att genomföra två intervjuer med lämpliga representanter från EQT samt en intervju och ett styrdokument med Norrsken22. I studien konstateras att båda arbetar aktivt med att minska asymmetrierna på strategisk såväl som operativ nivå. EQT har avdelningar och digitala verktyg vars främsta syfte är att överbrygga informationsbrister, en omfattande due diligence-process för att öka förståelsen för maktbalansen och ett finansiellt ramverk för att säkerställa att intressekonflikter undviks. Norrsken22 försöker involvera sina investerare i det operativa arbetet genom att skapa en gemenskap sinsemellan och på så sätt föra dem närmare rollen som fondförvaltare. Studien kunde ha involverat ett investerarperspektiv i stället för att begränsa undersökningen till företagets och generalägarens tankar. Oavsett detta visar avhandlingen ett inifrånperspektiv på de asymmetrier som uppvisas och de motåtgärder som initieras som svar, ett perspektiv som inte tidigare har utforskats i akademiska artiklar.

The task of predicting start-up growth has been an item of institutional as wellas widespread individual research and acclaim of those successful. This workis an attempt to distill the alleged factors of prediction in the large body ofwork that has already been documented, as well as investigating reasonable butyet untested variables. Conclusions are built with a multiple regression model,exploring 7 regressors with data spanning 2014-2019 to avoid the potentiallyabnormal impact of the Covid-19 crisis.Due to the choice of non-predictive regressors, the final result is an explanatorymodel, highlighting the importance of rigorousness in the process of model-building and outlining of data collection in regression analysis. Most regres-sors had a non-significant or weak relationship with the response variable, butconcludes an explanatory degree of 51%. Even if it can not be utilised as apredictive model, it may provide some interesting insight. In the final model,every regressor except one had an unexpected beta value, contradicting earlierresearch. / Åtagandet att förutsäga 'start-up' tillväxt har varit ämne för institutionellsåväl som utbredd individuell undersökning och följaktligen hyllning för de som varit framgångsrika. Denna studieär ett försök att destillera de påstådda faktorerna för förutsägelse utifrån den redan dokumenterade litteraturen, samt utreda rimliga men ännu outforskade variabler. Slutsatser byggs med en multipel regressionsmodell,som utforskar 7 regressorer med data som sträcker sig 2014-2019 för att undvika de potentiellt atypiska effekterna av covid-19-krisen.På grund av valet av vissa icke-prediktiva regressorer är slutresultatet en förklarandemodell, som belyser vikten av noggrannhet i processen för modell-uppbyggnad och planeringen av datainsamling i regressionsanalys. De flesta regressorer hade ett icke-signifikant eller svagt samband med svarsvariabeln, men den slutgiltiga modellen påvisar en förklaringsgrad på 51 %. Även om den inte kan användas som en prediktiv modell, så bidrar den med betydande insikter. Alla regressorer utom en visade ett oväntat beta-värde, vilket motsäger tidigare forskning.

The lack of coherent and established methods and processes for evaluating early-stage development projects presents a severe challenge for both investors and entrepreneurs. For investors, the lack of an established process risks making every investment decision “ad hoc”, and in the long run prevent any meaningful analysis or comparison between different investments. For the entrepreneur, it makes the fundraising process a maze of seemingly random information requests from potential investors and a constant lack of understanding of where in the process they are, what is required to reach a decision and where to focus their efforts. This thesis describes these challenges in more detail together with some general background of the tools available today. It continues to outline a generalized process for reaching an investment decision, together with descriptions of the different information artifacts that are central to the process. The result is a step-by-step process that can be predicted and iterated between the entrepreneur and the investor. In each step, focus is on a certain piece of information and the goal is to make it clear to all parties what is expected in each step and why. / Avsaknaden av en koherent och vedertagen process för att utvärdera utvecklingsprojekt i tidig fas presenterar and allvarlig utmaning för både investerare och entreprenörer. För investerare, bristen på en etablerad process riskerar att varje investeringsbeslut tas på ”ad-hoc” basis, vilket i det långa loppet omöjliggör meningsfull analys och jämförelse mellan olika investeringar. För entreprenören så gör det processen att söka investeringskapital till en labyrint av slumpmässiga informationsförfrågningar ifrån potentiella investerare och en konstant brist på förståelse för var i processen de befinner sig, vad som krävs för att nå beslut och vart de skall fokusera sitt arbete. Denna rapport beskriver dessa utmaningar i mer detalj, tillsammans med viss generell bakgrund om de verktyg som finns att tillgå idag. Den fortsätter med att beskriva en generaliserad process för att nå ett investeringsbeslut och de informationsartefakter som är centrala för processen. Resultatet är en steg för steg process som är förutsägbar och som kan itereras mellan entreprenören och investeraren. I varje steg ligger fokus på en specifik informationsdel och målet är att göra det tydligt för alla inblandade vad som förväntas i varje steg och varför.

Human capital assessment is an integral part of the in-depth evaluation conducted by Venture Capitalists (VCs) before an investment decision. Furthermore, an effective collaboration between external investors and the founding team can be vital for the success of a startup venture. This thesis aims to improve this assessment and collaboration by providing an empirical account of historically successful Swedish tech startups and their founding teams (FT). We employ semi-structured interviews with 13 entrepreneurs who in total have founded over 50 ventures in order to deduce patterns to the characteristics, compositions and views of successful founding management teams. We compile and discuss their views concerning aspects such as organizational culture, team performance and their relationships with external financiers. The focus of this thesis was in part guided by our commissioner, Almi Invest. Based on our interviews and literature review, we present several findings which may be of interest to both investors and entrepreneurs. Some of our key findings are that successful Swedish tech startups are generally composed of diverse teams where the founders share some previous association and complement each other with regards to both competencies and personalities. They view culture and vision as important aspects, with values acting as the uniting factor that drives cohesion and performance. We also find that their views are largely influenced by previous experiences. Finally, we highlight some perceived inefficiencies in the collaboration between investors and entrepreneurs, mainly with regards to post-investment activities and the process of raising capital. Our findings suggest a lack of transparency between entrepreneurs and financiers regarding the investor activity levels, where entrepreneurs generally feel that VCs fall short on their promises. We suggest some areas of improvement where VCs might tune their practices to better suit the needs of their portfolio companies and improve overall performance.

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在台灣的高科技產業發展中，創投扮演了重要的角色，其所提供的資金與協助促進了新創事業的成長，造就了台灣資訊電子產業的躍居世界舞台與傲人的經濟成長。2000年人類基因圖譜的解出，似乎加快了基因技術的應用與相關產業的發展，進而成為全球經濟成長的新動力，因此我國創投的投資觸角也積極地延伸到生物技術產業上。 　　過去有關創投的相關研究多集中在投資評估準則的總體性研究，甚少針對某一產業的特性不同，來做進一步的研究，特別是在生物科技產業方面，因此，本研究將針對生物技術產業的特性與創投的股東背景、經營團隊與合作網路等組成因子，來探討其所產生的投資策略與行為。 　　本研究採用個案訪談之定性研究，選擇六家在生技產業投資比重較大的國內創投公司做訪談，再依據本研究架構進行分析整理，得到了以下之結論： 　　一、 生技產業的特性對投資策略與行為之影響 　　　1. 創投因看好生技產業的成長潛力而將提高此方面的投資比重，而生技產業的投資金額以美國為最高。 　　　2. 創投在生技產業的投資階段傾向涵蓋不同的階段。 　　　3. 創投在生技產業的投資以醫藥產業及其週邊之醫療器材為主，主要考量是醫藥產業是目前為止較高報酬的領域。 　　　4. 創投在生技產業的投資區域以美國為主，其中最重要的原因與該地區之產業群聚有關。 　　　5. 創投在生技產業的投資傾向以投資組合管理及聯合同業投資來降低投資風險。 　　　6. 創投在生技產業的投資傾向不聘任外部顧問，而傾向以經營團隊之專業評估為主，再以已投資公司與事業夥伴為諮詢對象。 　　　7. 創投在生技產業的投資回收策略為上市或購併，投資回收期間並不會因為生技產業的產品開發期長而延長。 　　　8. 創投在生技產業的投資評估，著重整體性評估（不會只看技術或智慧財產權），會因事業投資階段而有不同的評估重點，投資案愈偏早期，愈著重技術與人。投資案愈偏成熟期，所需評估的項目愈多。 　　　9. 生技產業的特性雖對創投的附加價值沒有影響，但創投對生技產業的投資案有提供附加價值，會因投資案事業發展階段之不同，而提供所需之協助，附加價值則以資訊蒐集與人脈介紹為主。 　　二、創投的組成對投資策略與行為之影響 　　　1. 創投的股東對外部顧問策略、投資案源與投資評估有影響，對投資金額、投資階段、投資領域、投資區域、風險控管、回收策略與附加價值沒有影響。 　　　2. 創投的經營團隊對投資金額、投資階段、投資領域、投資區域、風險控管、外部顧問、回收策略、投資評估與附加價值有明顯的影響，對投資案源則有些影響。 　　　3. 創投的合作網路對外部顧問、投資評估與附加價值有影響，對投資案源更是有明顯影響，而對投資金額、投資階段、投資領域、投資區域、風險控管與回收策略沒有影響。　 　　三、生技產業的特性對創投的組成之影響 　　　1. 生技產業的特性對創投董事會內的股東背景沒有影響。 　　　2. 生技產業的的特性影響到創投招募技術專業之經營團隊。 　　　3. 創投未因生技產業的特性而建構新的合作網路，而傾向運用集團中原有之合作網路，尤其是過去的已投資公司，為創投主要的諮詢者。 / Venture capital plays an important role in the development of high technological industries in Taiwan. It provides the essential fund and useful assistance to promote the growth of start-up companies. Because of it, the growth of economy in Taiwan dramatically increases and Taiwan has become the kingdom of information and communication industries around the world. In the year 2000, the complete sequence of human genome has enhanced the speed of the development in the field of biotech and its associated industries. In addition, the investment in biotech industry is expected to stimulate another trend of global economic growth. Therefore, venture capital in Taiwan also actively extends its influence in the field of biotech industries. 　　The majority of researches in venture capital seems to concentrate on the overall evaluation of the general criteria of investment, few studies focused on one particular industry, especially the biotech industry and its characteristics and aspects. Therefore, this study will aim at the characteristics of biotech industry and the constituent factors of venture capital to explore the strategies and behaviors of investment. 　　A qualitative research was conducted in six important venture capital firms in Taiwan using a method of intensive personal interview. The summaries of the research findings are as follows: 　　I. The impacts of the characteristics of biotech industry on the strategies and behaviors of investment: 　　　1. Venture capital firms will increase investment percentage in biotech area because of its potential of growth, and the majority amounts of venture capital seem to be invested in the United States. 　　　2. The venture capital firms’ investments in biotech tend to cover various stages. 　　　3. The fields venture capital firms invest in biotech appear to be focused on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, because the operating return from this area is higher than any others so far. 　　　4. The location of biotech companies venture capital invested are focused on the United States, which seem to have obvious phenomenon of clustering. 　　　5. Through portfolio management and co-investment, venture capital firms can reduce risk while investing in biotech. 　　　6. Instead of relying on outside consultant when invest in biotech, venture capital firms prefer to depend on inside management teams for due diligence. In addition, the past invested firms and partners are helpful while needed. 　　　7. The exit strategies of venture capital firms are initial public offering or merger & acquisition when invest in biotech companies, and the period of investment appears to be not correlated with the long product life cycle of biotech industry. 　　　8. Instead of emphasis on technologies or intellectual properties, venture capitalists emphasize all factors which evaluating biotech companies. Their decision criteria depend on venture development stages, the earlier stages these cases are, the more important technologies and management teams are, the later stages these cases are, the more factors are considered. 　　　9. Venture capitalists add values to the biotech companies they invested, not because of the characteristics of biotech industry, but differ from development stages of cases. Most of add values are information collection and networking. 　　II. The influences of the constituent factors of VC on the strategies and behaviors of investment: 　　　1. The stockholders of venture capital affect outside consultant strategy, deal flow, due diligence, but make no influence on investment amount, venture development stage, field, location, risk control, exit strategy and value-added. 　　　2. The management teams of venture capital obviously influence investment amount, venture development stage, field, location, outside consultant strategy, risk control, exit strategy, due diligence and value-added, and make a little influence on deal flow. 　　　3. The networking of venture capital make a little influence on outside consultant, due diligence and value-added, and make obvious influence on deal flow, but do not affect investment amount, venture development stage, field, location, risk control and exit strategy. 　　III. The influences of the characteristics of biotech industry on the components of venture capital: 　　　1. The characteristics of biotech industry don’t appear to affect the background of stockholders in the board. 　　　2. Venture capital firms recruit professional management teams because of the same particular characteristics of biotech industry. 　　　3. While investing in biotech industry, venture capital firms utilize networks, especially the past invest , as their main consultants.

This thesis aims to better understand the process of the funding of young innovative<p>ventures, and how a deeper understanding of this process can help public policy to better<p>stimulate entrepreneurial firms—especially in high-technology industries. I interpret<p>entrepreneurial finance broadly to mean financing issues facing young innovative<p>ventures. It includes three essays which deal with a set of economic, institutional, and<p>public policy issues to examine entrepreneurial finance. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Innovation has been considered the critical driver behind economic growth and value creation for a long time. However, in order to achieve an innovative status, the commercializing of an invention is required by injecting capital and strategy. While capital comes in many forms, this thesis focuses on the field of venture capital and how this type of financial backing can be analyzed and managed. Herein, the company characteristics continuum is presented, where business model innovation and technological innovation represent the two extremities. The purpose was then to investigate if there are significant differences in the venture capitalists' investment models as one moves along the aforementioned continuum. Semi-structured interviews were used and interpreted independently by the authors, with respect to coding units, in order to enhance objectivity. The thesis mainly targeted the information technology industry, where analysis was conducted on four of the largest actors on the Nordic venture capital market. The Nordic focus, combined with the rapidly moving industry, resulted in that significant differences, in the venture capitalists' investment models, were identified; giving implications both for theory and practice. These differences were identified as stemming from the initially adopted risk profiles, which then affected all other areas of the investment models. / Innovation har länge ansetts vara den kritiska drivkraften bakom ekonomisk tillväxt och värdeskapande. Emellertid, för att uppnå en innovativ status, krävs kommersialisering av en uppfinning genom att tillföra kapital och strategi. Kapital existerar i flera olika former, dock fokuserar denna uppsats på området riskkapital, och hur denna typ av finansiell backning kan analyseras och hanteras. Häri presenteras kontinuumet för företagskaraktäristik, där innovation inom affärsmodeller och teknik representerar de två ändpunkterna. Syftet var att undersöka om det fanns signifikanta skillnader mellan riskkapitalisters investeringsmodeller, när ett företag rör sig längs det ovan nämnda kontinuumet. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer användes och tolkades oberoende av författarna, genom att använda kodord, för att förbättra objektiviteten. Uppsatsen berör främst företag inom industrin för informationsteknologi, där analys har gjorts på fyra av de största aktörerna inom marknaden för riskkapital i Norden. Ett Nordiskt fokus, kombinerat med en hastigt utvecklande industri, resulterade i att signifikanta skillnader, i riskkapitalisters investeringsmodeller, identifierades; vilket gav implikationer för både teori och praktik. Dessa skillnader identifierades att härstamma från de initialt anammade riskprofilerna, som sedan påverkade alla andra områden inom investeringsmodellen.

Venture Capitals and early stage companies are of fundamental importance for how the market operates and develops. In the last decade more focus has been put on the ESG strategies and governance of organizations. However, ESG is a relatively new and complex research area in which ignorance and measurement problems have led to inconsistency in applications of ESG concepts and strategies. Based on empirical data consisting of qualitative document analysis and interviews with Swedish Venture Capitals this thesis aims, from theoretical perspectives within decision-making and ESG strategies, to investigate which ESG strategies are used among Swedish Venture Capitals investing in tech, and how these are applied in, are weighted and impact the decision-making process. The result shows that the decision making process can be assumed to be based on bounded rationality tinged by fragmented application of ESG concepts and strategies in which diversity and CO2 impact are prioritized focus areas. The common perception was also that investing in tech created a natural aligning to ESG. Active Ownership, Positive- and Negative screening are the central strategies that were applied with the aim to develop and manage the lack of information and the risks that follows with early stage investing. / Venture Capitals och early stage bolag är av fundamental betydelse för hur marknaden fungerar och utvecklas och under det senaste årtiondet har större fokus riktats mot organisationers ESG strategier och styrning. ESG är dock ett relativt nytt och komplext forskningsområde där okunskap och mätningsproblematik har lett till att begrepp och strategier tillämpas inkonsekvent. Utifrån empiri baserad på kvalitativ dokumentanalys och intervjuer från svenska Venture Capitals avser denna studie, utifrån teoretiska perspektiv inom beslutsfattande och ESG strategi, att undersöka vilka ESG strategier som används bland svenska Venture Capitals och hur de tillämpas, viktas och påverkar beslutsfattandet vid investeringar i tech. Resultatet visade att beslutsprocessen kan antas baseras på begränsad rationalitet präglad av fragmenterad tillämpning av ESG begrepp och strategier där jämställdhet och CO2 påverkan var prioriterade fokusområden. Den gemensamma bilden var även att investering i tech skapade en naturlig förankring till ESG. Active ownership, Positive- och Negative screening var de centrala strategierna som tillämpades i syfte att utveckla och hantera den informationsbrist och de risker som medföljde early stage investering.