Box.net’s co-founder/CEO (Jan 13, 2011), by Robert Scoble, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
Given the amount of time, energy, and resources it takes to start and develop a successful venture, it is not surprising that founders often describe their organizations as their babies or children. Much like the relationship between parents and their children, these organizations can become self-defining. At the same […]
Robot by geralt, Pixabay, under a CC0 licence
The debate is quite old. Machines, and then robots, have always brought fears and fantasies about unemployment and the brutal disappearance of skills and meaning.
With the rise of the so-called industry 4.0, fear is back. I believe that more than ever, it is a justified fear. Technology has never been more likely […]
Children eating lunch at school, by USDA, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
The purpose of education is to produce happy, healthy, impactful lives, and let society reap the benefits. At first glance, this may not seem controversial, but taken to its radical extreme, this purpose statement — the core tenet of my company, Socos — leads to a fundamentally different approach […]
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment.” — Sebastopol, Leo Tolstoy
Expressing one’s fears may indicate weakness and might even be considered a taboo subject, especially in the sometimes rather ‘macho’ world of entrepreneurship. Even for scholars of motivation, fear of failure has never received as much attention […]
In 1973, when bright and ambitious Stanford University grads were laying the paving stones for Silicon Valley, Britain joined the European Economic Community, the precursor to today’s European Union. Back then, few if any investors or entrepreneurs had their eyes on Europe. The bright California sun was too dazzling, plentiful venture capital too exciting. Meanwhile Britain, the ‘sick man of […]
Oxstem, an Oxford biotech spin-off focusing on regenerative medicine for age-related diseases, recently raised a record £16.9 million at start-up (Ward, 2016). The money was invested by the local Oxford Sciences Innovation fund and two American venture capital (VC) investors. Why is this important?
Seed and early-stage venture capital were mainly provided by local investors in the past, as entrepreneurial […]
We all know that smoking is bad for you. Yet, smoking regulation remains contentious on the basis of endangering individual rights, their discriminatory potential, and, notably, due to economic considerations. Smoking bans are part of a larger agenda of tobacco control focusing on health issues and involving, on one side, various activist groups whose interests are often aligned with […]
The number of announced equity investments into UK-headquartered non-listed companies dropped significantly between the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2015 and the first quarter (Q1) of 2016 – from 314 to 280. We could claim the drop is not relevant, since it applies to a comparison between different seasons. But equity investments also fell between Q1 2015 and Q1 2016 […]
Our research explores how venture capitalists (VCs) and chief executive officers (CEOs) jointly affect the risk-taking behaviour of a startup — manifested through innovation novelty over the new venture’s different life stages. We show that VCs behave differently for each stage. They generally encourage startups to take high risk by pursuing novel innovations early on. In later stages, VCs […]
Recently, I had the honour to analyse the challenge of immigration and refugees at the Danish National Association of Economists and Lawyers (Djøf). For quite some time there has been a political debate on what to do with immigration and refugees both in Denmark and Europe. What should we do with them? Let them in? Not let them in? […]
At the Olympic Games, or when we see the GDP ranking of countries, or any other global comparison of countries, we tend to first look for the performance of the country we are from, live in, or have other ties to in the hope that this country has performed well against its global competition. Rankings of the level of […]
Early-stage investors make decisions to provide seed money to a startup based on the slimmest of information about the business. Even when they conduct in-depth due diligence, they receive very little tangible data on the product or service (because there is often not yet even a prototype) and they do not formally assess the market growth possibilities (because the […]
It’s a familiar idea that venture capitalists, or VCs, are the “money of invention” and fund firms with high growth potential, helping bring their products to market. However, entrepreneurs have many options when considering funding. There are corporate venture capitalists (CVC), which typically work within a larger corporate structure and seek to acquire innovative startups that would blend well […]
Open workspaces have grown in the last five years as a solution to the problem of workplace costs spiralling higher than smaller tenants can afford. They include artists’ studios, makerspaces, incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces. London was recently reconfirmed as the most expensive city in the world to live and work; the combined cost of living and working space […]
Entrepreneurship is essential for economic growth and employment creation. Yet despite its key role in the economy, entrepreneurs find it hard to access the financing they need to start and expand their businesses. Lack of funding is perennially identified as a major constraint on new venture growth. Moreover, traditional venture capital markets have been criticised for not being inclusive […]
When asked what would the Big Idea of 2015 be, Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute and the author of an award-winning Steve Jobs biography, argued that “digital currencies and micropayments are likely to be the disruptive innovation”. In his view, “frictionless coin systems that allow us to buy digital content on impulse would support journalists who […]
Diagnostic lab testing is a multi-billion dollar business, and is not without shortcomings. Blood tests are costly, available at inconvenient locations and involve painful needles that draw more blood than is warranted. Elizabeth Holmes, the 32-year-old founder of Theranos, aims to make blood testing a consumer-driven experience that is painless and price efficient. Having traveled the country and delivered […]
In a country that is home to a third of the world’s poor, promoting social enterprise has many potential benefits. It can make essential goods and services like healthcare and energy more affordable, improving well-being and contributing to economic development, particularly in rural areas. Furthermore, through the products and services they sell and the inclusive ways in which they operate, social […]
An ultimate challenge for technology entrepreneurs is the need for capital to continue to innovate, sustain, and commercialise their innovation. The considerable risks associated with the technological feasibility, business model credibility, and product or service viability severely limits access to capital, yet angel investors and venture capitalists fill this need by investing in startups in exchange for an equity […]
As large investors in the UK become more willing to inject capital in less liquid assets, the investment in the UK’s fast-growth company sector has been growing at increasing speed. It has now become obsolete to talk about recovery – we should now be talking about growth in unqualified terms.
In our study of the UK equity investment market, we […]
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