Innovation in Venture Capital

Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis or Project Study

📌 Key facts

• Mission: Identify and analyse current trends, developments, and innovations in Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Angel investing. • When: Start anytime. Applications are open! • How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV and a grade report and a tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

Contents

• 💡 Background
• 🦾Who We Are
• 🎯 Goals
• 🎓 Profile
• 📚 Further Reading
• 📄 Requirements to any Work
• 📬 How to Apply

💡 Background

While venture capital is especially known for investing in innovative start-ups, investment companies also need to innovate themselves. Specifically, in new due diligence models, target identification tools, and portfolio management solutions. In 2020 a German VC was featured in the news because of success rate of their new AI-based valuation tool. That being said, VC has seen some massive innovation in the past decade: the rise of the super angels, the subsequent explosion of seed funds, VC blogging, AngelList — today the fundraising environment is certainly different for founders. In other countries, investment companies are jumping on other trends, new financing structures, and industries. We want you to find out what trends private investment companies currently face and how they innovate.

🦾Who We Are

The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on doing research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.

🎯 Goals

• Research academic literature on the topic
• Collect examples of companies which are pioneers in innovation
• Analyse their used tools, approaches, and organizational structures
• Analyse other trends in the private investing industry

🎓 Profile

• Reliable and self-driven
• Enthusiasm for Venture Capital / Digital Trends / Investment Research / Private Equity
• Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
• Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact

📚 Further Reading

The 26 most innovative venture capital firms

Every new VC firm that launches touts to be a "new breed of venture capital firm", but the reality is that most of the time it's just a straight up old-school VC model.

medium.com

How Venture Capital Works

Invention and innovation drive the U.S. economy. What's more, they have a powerful grip on the nation's collective imagination. The popular press is filled with against-all-odds success stories of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. In these sagas, the entrepreneur is the modern-day cowboy, roaming new industrial frontiers much the same way that earlier Americans explored the West.

hbr.org

The changing nature of venture capital

SoftBank and Andreesen Horowitz (a16z) recently announced new funds that reinforce the increasing scale of the venture industry. SoftBank announced its intent to raise a second Vision Fund through a public offering, a first for any venture firm. A16z announced two new funds, an early-stage $750 million fund and a growth-stage $2 billion fund.

techcrunch.com

Digitale Revolution: Einhörner aus der Glaskugel: Wie KI Milliarden-Start-ups erkennen soll

Ein junger KI-Experte hat einen Algorithmus entwickelt, der erfolgversprechende Start-ups häufiger erkennt als durchschnittliche Investoren. München, Berlin Man könnte es als Glaskugel bezeichnen, mit der man künftige Einhörner in der Unternehmenswelt erkennen kann: Andre Retterath forscht an Vorhersagemodellen für Milliarden-Start-ups. Die Theorie dazu hat der junge Experte für Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) gerade seinem Doktorvater an der Technischen Universität München vorgelegt.

www.handelsblatt.com

8 Venture Capital And Technology Trends To Watch In 2021

2020 was a stop, start year. Normal levels of activity until around March, a three to four-month pause, and then almost back to pre-pandemic levels. As we go into 2021, the funding market is experiencing a high degree of bifurcation, with early-stage funding slowing down and later-stage funding experiencing something of a mini-boom.

www.forbes.com

📄 Requirements to any Work

We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of a bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:

• Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
• Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
• Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
• 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
• optional: Medium Article - let people outside university know about your research and start your personal brand

📬 How to Apply

If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!

👉 welpe@tum.de