Venture Capital Initiative - Courses - Related Courses

Related Courses

ACQUISITION OF CLOSELY HELD ENTERPRISES

Faculty

Hunter Reichert, Adjunct Lecturer

Course Description

This course focuses on the process of acquisition of a business entity. Students will be shown the tools they need and the process to follow to successfully acquire a business of their own. Among the major topics covered will be the search process, assessing and valuing the business, financing consideration, negotiating, and closing the deal. The course may be of interest to those MBA students who are interested in leveraged buyouts, investment banking, venture capital, and other related careers.

Course Objectives

• Guide students through the process that leads to successful acquisition of a business
• Provide students with the skills and information they need to search, value, and acquire their own business

 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH ACQUISITION

Faculty

Les Alexander, John Glynn Endowed Professor and Professor of Practice in Business Administration

Course Description

Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) is a growing career path for MBA graduates and experienced individuals looking to become the CEO of their own company by purchasing an existing business using third-party capital. This course provides students with an introduction to the process of searching for a company, valuing a small business, structuring a deal, negotiating with a seller, completing due diligence, obtaining debt and equity financing, and closing the transaction to become the CEO of their own business. We will review the differences between a funded and a self-funded search, practice how to assess positive characteristics and risks of a company and learn how to utilize various forms of financing to purchase a small business. Through case and other readings, classroom discussions, and conversations with guest speakers who are current or former searchers, or are professionals engaged in the industry, students will explore the many aspects of searching for and acquiring a company. The final project will allow students to prepare a presentation for investors outlining the elements necessary to purchase of a business.

Course Objectives

• Articulate what a search fund is and the entrepreneurship through acquisition model.
• Describe the differences between a funded search and a self-funded search.
• Explain the steps in the process for acquiring a small private business.
• Understand the importance of developing an investment thesis and search criteria used to evaluate target opportunities and communicate with investors and brokers.
• Appreciate what makes an attractive acquisition opportunity and what does not.
• Comprehend the importance of conducting due diligence and identifying risk.
• Gain insight into deal structuring
• Learn about valuing a small private business and how to develop an acquisition model.
• Explore how to structure the purchase of a small business using SBA debt, bank debt, seller debt, preferred equity, common equity, and rollover equity.
• Develop a presentation for potential equity investors to be used to raise capital for an acquisition.

ESG INVESTING

Faculty

Pedro Matos, James A. and Stacy Cooper Bicentennial Professor of Business Administration, John G. Macfarlane Family Chair and Academic Director of Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management

Course Description

This course explores the growth of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing with a particular focus on the role of public capital markets in helping to address sustainable development goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). ESG is increasingly mainstream – for example, the largest global network of investors, the UN-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has now over 3,500 signatories managing with over US$120 trillion in assets (https://www.unpri.org/about-us/about-the-pri). However, there is an active debate regarding every aspect (definitions, measurement, regulation, etc.) with claims of “greenwashing” and also a backlash against ESG which strengthens the need for a critical and evidence-based exploration of the field. This course covers some of the major ESG investing approaches (screening, thematic, integration and engagement) in capital markets and takes a global perspective. It includes a special module on Climate Finance that covers the physical, transition and regulatory risks of climate change and the need to finance a shift to a net-zero carbon economy. Guest speakers will provide additional ideas and tools to interpret the case studies and enrich the class discussion.

Course Objectives

• Explore the evolving ESG investing landscape both from the point of view of investors choosing investments and firms responding to investor activities.
• Understand how to incorporate ESG factors into investment decisions and analyze the different approaches across a range of asset classes.
• Gain insights into climate risk and examine climate-focused investing solutions and their effectiveness in combating climate change.

FINTECH

Faculty

Ian Appel, Associate Professor of Business Administration

Course Description

This course examines how emerging technologies and business models are transforming the financial system. We explore innovation across core sectors—payments, lending, insurance, and investing—with a focus on technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and blockchain. We analyze how both startups and established firms are deploying these tools across global markets. The course emphasizes economic intuition and strategic context, helping students understand not just how FinTech works, but why it matters. It is interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from finance, economics, strategy, law, and public policy. Special attention is given to the broader social implications of FinTech, including its impact on financial inclusion and consumer welfare.

Course Objectives

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

• Assess the disruptive potential of FinTech companies.
• Explain how emerging technologies and business models reduce traditional financial frictions, and how they may create new ones.
• Analyze how economic forces, consumer behavior, technological change, and regulation shape the success of FinTech firms.
• Evaluate the social and welfare implications of FinTech innovations.

IMPACT INVESTING

Faculty

Matthew McBrady, Professor of Practice

Course Description

In recent years discussion of “Impact” and “ESG” investing have gone mainstream. While many of the same societal pressures and trends have led to the growth of both, there are important differences between the two in terms of both underlying investor motivations and typical investment strategies and structures deployed. This course focuses exclusively on Impact Investing – which largely takes place in private markets – while ESG Investing – which largely takes place in public markets – is covered in its own dedicated elective. While there is not yet widespread agreement on terms, Impact Investing is often distinguished from other forms of investing by two fundamental tenets: (i) the intentional attempt on the part of investors to generate specific social or environmental benefits (as well as financial returns), and (ii) the requirement that these benefits be above-and-beyond those that would have occurred without the investment. Against this backdrop, impact investing has grown from humble beginnings in microfinance (in developing countries) and community development finance (in the US and other industrialized nations) – with less than $1 billion dollars deployed across all sectors – into the hottest new sector in finance with nearly $1 trillion in AUM and even the world’s largest and most prestigious private equity firms eager to enter.

Course Objectives

• Explore the history and evolution of the Impact Investing sector from historically disparate efforts to harness market forces in pursuit of social and environmental objectives in microfinance, community development finance, and clean energy (among others)
• Examine the manner in which impact investors (and the people and institutions that fund tthem) measure, monitor, and manage impact
• Explore the unique manner in which philanthropic, public, and market-rate financing are combined into so called “blended” capital structures in pursuit of social or environmental goals

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Faculty

Michael Ho, Professor of Practice

Course Description

This course examines Mergers and Acquisitions from multiple perspectives: strategic, tactical, financial, tax, legal, corporate governance, etc., thus providing a full picture of the complexity arising during an M&A transaction. The course discusses how to structure a deal and why: how to parse risks among buyer and seller, deal with potential anti-trust issues, and account for strategic and governance forces which may add to the probability of success in an M&A deal. Besides case studies and practitioner-expert presentations the course asks students to research a failed deal and provide learnings in the classroom. The course is important for students interested in Investment Banking, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Consulting, Corporate Finance as well as General Management. M&A is a fundamental way to grow a business and inevitably business leaders will encounter M&A in their professional lives.

Course Objectives

• Understand the complexity of an M&A transaction and the various aspects impacting the success -strategic, legal, financial, etc.
• Understand the various risks arising in a deal and how to use tools to distribute them among buyer and seller

STARTING NEW VENTURES

Faculty

Saras Sarasvathy, Paul M. Hammaker Professor in Business Administration, Academic Director of the Batten Institute, and Jamuna Raghavan Chair Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore

Course Description

The primary objective of the course is to allow students to walk a few steps in the shoes of an entrepreneur while learning how expert entrepreneurs build new ventures that endure. Cases, guest lecturers, and students’ project work will allow them to explore financial, legal, interpersonal, and personal challenges likely to be encountered by the independent entrepreneur. This course draws from cognitive science-based research on how expert entrepreneurs think, decide, and act while starting new ventures. Key issues addressed will include risk perception and management, formulation of innovative stakeholder relationships, and the creation of new markets through new ventures. As part of the course, students will be required to come up with a venture idea and take the initial steps in actually starting it. The course is recommended for those interested in initiating a personal venture at some point in their lives working with or consulting for an early stage entrepreneurial team or seeking entry into Darden’s Progressive Incubator™.

Course Objectives

• Contrast conventional wisdom with how expert entrepreneurs actually do it
• Show how to build innovative and effective partnerships
• Help students grasp the subtleties of ownership and control
• Increase the probability of success and reduce the costs of failure
• Comprehend the personal realities of becoming and being an entrepreneur
• Acquire basic tools for successful entrepreneurship that include incorporation, putting together a board, creating a new brand, and elements of business plans

TACTICAL TOPICS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH ACQUISITION

Faculty

Randolph (Randy) Seibert, Adjunct Lecturer

Course Description

This course provides students with exposure to practical matters faced by operators of smaller enterprises. Whether starting or acquiring a small enterprise, entrepreneurs will be better prepared having been introduced to real-world topics such as relationships with key service vendors (banking, legal, accounting), commercial leasing terms, employee benefit programs, state and local public policy, government procurement, commercial insurance, commercial security interests, credit policies, and financial and operational control systems– from the vantage of the smaller enterprise where choices are often limited as compared to the options available to larger enterprises.

Course Objectives

Expose the students to concepts relevant to the small and closely-held business context. Concepts include:

• Personal entrepreneurial assessment
• Entrepreneurship through acquisition
• Linkage between business goals and those of owner-managers
• Small-enterprise regulatory and government affairs
• Awareness and compliance of labor laws and regulations
• Evaluating an acquisition turnaround opportunity
• Financing challenges
• Competing with large enterprises
• Business partners
• Real estate leases
• Family business topics
• Working with an attorney
• Franchising terms
• Hands-on work, often difficult
• Contributing to the community, B-Corps
• Vendor selection

ENTREPRENEURIAL THINKING

Faculty

Sankaran Venkataraman, MasterCard Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research

Course Description

In this course, we will discuss and learn about the art and science of “creating something new from little.” The course’s orientation will challenge you to think about creating, financing, and building a productive business organization with commonly available resources (e.g., intelligence, insight, energy, initiative, and personal relationships). This orientation is useful wherever new business creation may occur, namely through the actions of an independent entrepreneur or in a large, established firm. Entrepreneurship is not about “small business” or starting a new business. Instead, it addresses the process of new value creation by exercising imagination, creativity, action, trial and error, learning, and execution.

Entrepreneurial thinking is also about developing a particular attitude and state of mind, an artful, insightful, and innovative mentality rather than just “business administration.” It is a way of perceiving and creating opportunity wherever it may be needed. In a world undergoing continuous change, the ability to think “like an entrepreneur” has become a core skill of the “managerial mind,” and entrepreneurial management is the quintessence of “good management practice.”