Valuation of Start-ups - How Finnish Venture Capital Investors Value Early Stage Start-ups?
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Date
2019
Department
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Mcode
Degree programme
Accounting
Language
en
Pages
91
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Abstract
This research aims to understand “How Finnish Venture Capital Investors Value Early Stage Start-ups”. In order to do that the research considers three sub-questions: (1) What are the most important factors influencing their investment decision? (2) When investing in start-ups, what is the average investment timeframe? (3) Does the investment philosophy have an effect on valuing the companies? The traditional valuation models are reviewed to provide context for the study. Furthermore, their limitations with respect to start-ups are discussed. The challenges that arise from the lack of history data, asymmetric information and the difficulty of forecasting in the case of young companies are described. The literature on the modern portfolio theory and how venture capital portfolios differ from the traditional portfolios is also reviewed. Also alternative methods for valuing modern scalable business, software as a system (SaaS) are discussed. The research was conducted as a qualitative interview questionnaire where Finnish venture capital professionals were interviewed. Empirical data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and in total twelve interviews were conducted. Existing literature was contrasted with the experiences of the investors to examine how well the existing more traditional valuation methods apply to and are in reality used for valuating early stage start-ups. The research indicates that the traditional valuation methods do not readily apply to companies in their early stages. This was found to be mainly due to the lack of financial historical data, asymmetric information, and the difficulty of forecasting the future development of young companies. In addition to qualitative attributes, gut feeling – defined as experiences and behavioral models that have been used in previous situations - is strongly involved in the valuation of early stage start-ups.Description
Thesis advisor
Ojala, HannuKeywords
start-up, valuation, early stage, venture capital, investor, asymmetric information