Objectives

Attracting and securing funding for a new venture involves many stakeholders and, as such, it is important to understand the financing process from the perspective of the entrepreneur as well as the investors and any other key players. Whether raising capital as a new venture, funding a new project within a company, or preparing to harvest/exit a venture, fund raising requires more than a financial spreadsheet so entrepreneurial finance integrates many of the disciplines learned throughout the BSc in management.

Contents

The major topics covered in this module will include, but are not limited to:

• Sources and types of funding
• Deal screening and evaluation
• Due diligence
• Valuation methods
• Investment decision making

The course lectures and class discussions will be based upon the assigned articles, case studies, and real-world examples.

References

A collection of articles, case studies, podcasts & videos related to the aforementioned topics will be used. There is no need to purchase any materials for this course as all of the articles are available on the UNIL library electronic databases (All UNIL students have access to the BCUL databases) and all other materials will be posted on the course Moodle.

Everyone who intends to take this course is required to join the course Moodle, it only takes a few moments to register on the site so please do so as soon as possible.

Pre-requisites

• An interest in innovative ideas and their power to model the world around us
• A basic understanding of financial mathematics: investment multiples and annualised returns of individual shares and portfolios

Evaluation

First attempt

Exam:

Without exam (cf. terms)  

Evaluation:

Evaluation will be based in the following criteria:

• Individual class contribution: 15%
• Group “case” evaluations: 60%
• Individual written final assignment: 25%

The final assignmenet will be done during the last class session. There will be no exam diring the exam week.

Retake

Exam:

Without exam (cf. terms)  

Evaluation:

Any student failing to achieve a passing grade will complete an individual written assignment.