Capital Structures and Valuation for Early Stage Companies and Venture Capital Investment
Intersession 2025

This is a one-credit overview of the capital structures and investment issues for early-stage companies receiving venture capital funding.  Topics to be covered include:  an introduction to early stage investing; financial valuation concepts (the time value of money, discount rates, internal rates of return, and valuation methodologies for both mature and early stage companies); the basics of convertible preferred stock investment term sheets.  Students should expect to undertake basic arithmetic and simple algebra.  Prerequisite:  Business Entity Fundamentals; basic familiarity with balance sheets and income statements helpful but not required.  Evaluation:  Pass/Fail.  Passing requires participation in 80% of in-class “Poll Everywhere” polling questions and correctly answering 30 out of 40 multiple choice questions on an open book “final examination” that will be available on Canvas throughout the course and the following weekend.
Also, the current version of the syllabus (subject to change) is here.  I am working with the bookstore to create a course pack of the reading material.