{"id":7530,"date":"2010-05-03T16:02:25","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T20:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=7530"},"modified":"2017-11-20T08:01:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T13:01:59","slug":"iventures-growing-a-gut-feeling-at-the-ientrepreneurship-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2010\/05\/iventures-growing-a-gut-feeling-at-the-ientrepreneurship-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"iVentures: Growing a \u201cgut feeling\u201d at the iEntrepreneurship Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do angel investors and venture capitalists make the decision about investing in a new venture? How do they determine if the company they are betting on is worth $7 million, $25 million or $100 million?<\/p>\n

The \u201cart\u201d of due-diligence fascinates me. I call it an art, because as much as we apply sound financial principles and technology assessment processes, at the end of the day, there\u2019s a \u201cgut-feeling\u201d approach to writing the hefty (typically about half-million-dollar) check that new firms seek to help them grow.<\/p>\n

\"Students
Students in the iEntrepreneurship Lab project in the spring semester had completed their undergraduate degrees at institutions throughout the world. Front row, from left to right: Ricardo Weisz, New World Angels principal; Sandra Hoefurthner and Anna Kurshat, Munich Business School, Germany; Nisrine Iraqi, ESC Clermont, Morocco; Irma Becerra-Fernandez; and Sumit Kundu, Knight Ridder Center Research Professor, Department of Management and International Business. Back row: Mario Micoli, Universita Catoamep Castellanza, Italy; Jeff Miller, FIU; and Benjamin Rousseau, ESC Clermont, France<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The iEntrepreneurship Lab project is one of the activities I launched last year at Florida International University (FIU) as part our new Pino Center for Global Entrepreneurship strategy. It\u2019s one of several practical hands-on graduate projects, run by different faculty members, that are required for the Master of International Business (MIB) degree at the College of Business Administration. I run my projects in collaboration with two investors from New World Angels, a group of private investors that provides equity capital to early-stage companies in South Florida.<\/p>\n

In the spring semester, NWA principals Ricardo Weisz and Jack Karabees helped me lead a group of six students through the exciting due-diligence process.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the collaboration was to have students get a true taste of venture capital work by assisting in the initial due-diligence analysis of actual firms seeking investment from NWA. They used the same standardized technical process to analyze three very different companies. One develops innovations in magnetic technology for application in different market sectors, another develops innovative consumer technologies for the global skin care market and a third develops innovative products for testing the platelet levels in blood.<\/p>\n

By combining analytical work with an insight into the \u201cgut-feeling\u201d approach, the group got a sense of why venture capital work has drawn in so many of our generation\u2019s best and brightest minds. They enjoyed learning about the technical underpinnings of the innovations. In addition, they got a first-hand look at the role that \u201cangels\u201d play in giving opportunities to entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

While the process was brand-new to some of the students\u2014\u201cI had never heard of angels before,\u201d said Italy\u2019s Mario Micoli\u2014they learned with enthusiasm and came back with solid ideas. I was impressed with the great advice we got from these young minds. Who knows\u2014some day, it may be their companies that are seeking out an \u201cangel.\u201d<\/p>\n

View all articles by Irma Becerra-Fernandez<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do angel investors and venture capitalists make the decision about investing in a new venture? How do they determine if the company they are betting on is worth $7 million, $25 million or $100 million? The \u201cart\u201d of due-diligence fascinates me. I call it an art, because as much as we apply sound financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[127,141,232,625,784,813,1190,1202,1269,1516,1749,1869,2020,2240,2367,2515],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29803,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7530\/revisions\/29803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}