Best practice venture capital : principles, tools and approaches for investment, strategy and policy

study useful for investors, venture founders and management, university students and policy-makers. It is based on his thorough research, his own practical experiences as well as many interviews and discussions with specialists in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a study of best practices in a field where venture investors and founders interface and interact.The study has three parts. Part I presents pre-emptive methods to handle extreme upside potentials and downside risks in any kind of venture. Introducing some tools for analysis and decision-making, it shows how investors may control downside uncertainties and risks as well as upside opportunities and chances.Part II focuses on first mover ventures. It shows with a number of innovative concepts and tools how first mover advantages can be more systematically analysed for start-ups differing in technology and market characteristics. Furthermore, it looks at how optimisation of investors ́ yields can be obtained via the optimisation of entrepreneurial rents by venture founders and managements. For this latter purpose, the study introduces the concept optimal strategy path. The path is depicted by five strategy path properties. Each property is characterised by at least one visualised indicator. The study clarifies why and how a first mover described by a set of technology and market features must emphasise one or a couple of properties in designing its optimal strategy path. Otherwise, entrepreneurial rent cannot be optimised to the detriment of founders as well as investors.Part III introduces three normative issues, namely the design of a) fair start-up valuations, b) fair deal designs and c) best practice policy environments. Principle-based solutions are presented for reaching fairness in pre-money valuations and deal designs while legal and tax institutions are suggested to be cornerstones for a best practice policy environment.