COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 295D-2

COURSE TITLE: New Venture Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Adair Morse

E-MAIL ADDRESS: morse@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION:

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Mondays, 6:00PM to 9:30PM

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum

CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of cases, readings, lectures, guest speakers and real-time company illustration/interaction.

REQUIRED READINGS: There will be a stream of articles, cases and web reading required for class participation.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: TBD

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
How do entrepreneurs successfully raise finance?  In New Venture Finance, we take the perspective of the entrepreneur. Our first step is to figure out the rules of the game: What type of financier might be interested in our new venture and why? How will the venture capitalist or angel value our ideas, and what will the financing package look like? How will funding evolve as the startup grows, and how will investors exit the deal? As we put the pieces of our knowledge into practice in cases, the course evolves to the second step, of positioning our new venture ideas for success, not just in raising finance but in using finance strategically. The course focuses on raising equity (VC and angel) finance. Pools of capital are changing, and thus, we also take a serious look at alternatives: crowdfunding, micro-alternatives, credit, social and impact funds, public partnerships, and corporate VC. Many of the cases are local, as California is indeed a special place, but we also take the world as large and study successful startup finance in new markets globally. Woven in the course is a small project with a lot of freedom. Students use the opportunity to explore how funding options fit with an idea, to brainstorm and get on board with a team to package an idea for financiers, or just to learn how come up with ideas and think critically about them. The project complements our learning, but it is not meant to be all-encompassing. NVF is a structured, case-based class with the goal of ensuring that class members leave the course knowing the venture landscape and have the knowledge and skill to be strategic and wise in raising finance.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF INSTRUCTOR:
Adair Morse is Assistant Professor of Finance at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

Morse holds a Ph.D. in finance from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and masters degrees in statistics and agricultural economics from Purdue University. She began her career as an entrepreneur in transition Poland.

Morse has taught Global Entrepreneurial Finance, and Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

Her research covers the areas of household finance, entrepreneurship, corruption and governance, and asset management. Recent work has been instrumental in re-directing the debate on tax reform in Greece. Her work on fraud helped to shape the bounty provisions in the Dodd Frank law of financial reform. A number of papers on household finance and corruption appear in the Journal of Finance and Journal of Financial Economics, where she has won, respectively, the Brattle Prize and the Jensen Prize (second prize) for the best paper in Corporate Finance.