The Venture Capital Cycle by Paul Gompers

The Venture Capital Cycle by Paul Gompers

In The Venture Capital Cycle, Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner correct widespread misperceptions about the nature and role of the venture capitalist and provide an accessible and comprehensive overview of the venture capital industry. Bringing together fifteen years of ground-breaking research into the form and function of venture capital firms, they examine the fund-raising, investing, and exit stages of venture capitalists. Three major themes run throughout the process: venture investors confront tremendous information and incentive problems; venture capital processes are inherently interrelated, and a complete understanding of the industry requires a full understanding of the venture cycle; and, unlike most financial markets, the venture capital industry adjusts very slowly to shifts in the demand for and the supply of investment capital.This second edition has been thoroughly revised in light of recent research findings, and includes six new chapters. The first part, on fund-raising, now includes a chapter that examines what determines the level of venture capital fund-raising and how tax policy influences the demand for venture capital. Three new chapters in the second part, on investing, examine what kind of distortions are introduced when the venture capital market goes dramatically up, a question prompted by the 1999-2000 market bubble; demonstrate that the venture capital industry does indeed spur innovation, an important determinant of economic growth; and examine whether and under what circumstances governments can be effective venture capitalists. Two new chapters in the third part, on exiting venture capital investments, discuss whether venture capital firms affiliated with investment-banks are prone to conflicts of interest with public offerings and how lockups on initial public offerings are used to limit conflicts of interest.

Dr. Josh Lerner is a Strategic Advisor at Master Minds. He is a Senior Advisor at Grove Street Advisors, LLC. Dr. Lerner works with the firm in an advisory role with a particular emphasis on helping the firm and its clients identify and respond to key trends in the private equity industry. He is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management. Dr. Lerner's research ... focuses on the structure of private equity and venture capital organizations and their role in transforming scientific discoveries into commercial products. Much of his research is collected in The Venture Capital Cycle, MIT Press, 1999 and The Money of Invention, Harvard Business School Press, 2001. Dr. Lerner also teaches doctoral courses on entrepreneurship and empirical methods in corporate finance, as well as executive education offerings.
Dr. Lerner serves as a Research Associate in the Corporate Finance and Productivity Programs and a Co-Editor of Innovation Policy and the Economy. In the 1993-1994 academic year, Dr. Lerner introduced an elective M.B.A. course on private equity and venture capital. He was a Venture Advisor at Zero Stage Capital. Dr. Lerner examined the impact of intellectual property protection, particularly patents, on the competitive strategies of firms in high-technology industries. He founded, raised funding for, and organized two groups at the National Bureau of Economic Research: the Entrepreneurship Working Group and the Innovation Policy and the Economy Group.
He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. Dr. Lerner recently led an international team of scholars in a study of the economic impact of private equity for the World Economic Forum. He is a Member of the Advisory Board of RBC Venture Partners and also for Zero Stage Capital. Dr. Lerner serves as a Harvard Business School's representative on Harvard University Patent, Trademark and Copyright Committee and the Provost's Committee on Technology Transfer. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and a B.A. from Yale College with a special divisional major which combined Physics with the history of Technology.