COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 295D-11

COURSE TITLE: New Venture Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 units

INSTRUCTOR: Zafar, Shah

EMAIL: nzafar@haas.berkeley.edu

MEETINGS DAY(S)/TIME: Saturdays, 9:00AM-12:00PM

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core

CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of cases, readings, lectures, guest speakers

REQUIRED READINGS:  There will be articles, cases and web reading 

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Students will work in teams of 4 or 5 each. In addition to Class participation, each team will prepare and present the financial section of the business plan for a startup business. Students can chose a startup of their own or work on a new idea. Three additional handouts will be required:

a) Initial financing needs assessment (bottom-up analysis)

b) Investors IRR calculations based on pre-money and exit values

c) Founder’s returns based on 3 exit scenarios

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: This course gives you a clear understanding how to finance and fund your startup or a high-growth company. The course is focused on students who expect to be a founder or CEO of a startup (not the CFO) and want to fully understand the issues, challenges and tools for managing a company through strategic planning, financial analysis, business model creation, funding alternatives, fund raising, alternative financing, and exit strategy.

The focus of the class is primarily strategic. This is not a numbers intensive course, but rather a course that will teach a future entrepreneurial leader how to think through the issues and act accordingly. The class is more about decision making process than numerical analysis.

But it is a finance class and there will be some number crunching similar to the level a CEO must master (but not the CFO). Note that this will NOT be a course about financial theory, betas, Black-Scholes calculations or DCF; instead it will focus on real world issues that arise in the context of the financial needs of an entrepreneurial venture, many of which are about market and marketing/sales issues. Certain topics covered in 295A are explored in greater detail.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Naeem Zafar

Naeem has been teaching at Berkeley-Haas School of business since 2005. He has taught entrepreneurship and New Venture Finance. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Bitzer Mobile, a company that provides software for secure enterprise mobility.

Naeem started his own business at the age of 26 and subsequently went on to start, or work at, six startups. His first job out of Brown University with a degree in electrical engineering was to design chips and electronic systems. Twenty years, two kids, one IPO and three CEO stints later, he founded Startup-Advisor, a company focused on educating and advising entrepreneurs on all aspects of starting and running a business (www.Startup-Advsior.com ).

Naeem works frequently with the US State Department in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across the world on starting entrepreneurial ecosystems throughout the world. He is on the International advisory board for the North African initiative at the Aspen Institute. He has travelled to 76 countries to understand cultures and how business is done and considers himself a global citizen.

Naeem has authored five books on entrepreneurship on topics ranging from conducting market research to seeking the right funding to successful ways to start a business. Information can be found on www.NaeemZafar.com. : 

Safwan Shah

Safwan Shah is currently the CEO and founder of PayActiv, Inc., venture partner at Melbourne based Adventure Capital Pty Ltd., board member of Techlogix, a leading software and services company, advisor and investor for several startups, faculty mentor/lecturer at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and adjunct faculty at UC Santa Cruz.

Safwan founded Infonox, a market leader in cloud based payment, underwriting and transaction services for banks, casinos, retail and money transfer businesses. Under Safwan’s leadership, Infonox annually served over 100M consumers and settled over $20 Billion. In 2009, Infonox was acquired by TSYS. Prior to that, Safwan held research positions at BioServe Space Technologies (a NASA center for commercial development of space), where a number of his experiments were part of US space shuttle missions.

Safwan has an MS/PhD from UC Boulder and is a graduate of Stanford Executive Program (SEP) from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. Safwan is also a patron of the Charter Hill Society and is included in the UC Berkeley honor roll of major donors.