Venture Capital Investment - Beyond the Basics - Live at Your Desk

Introduction

This intermediate level virtual classroom session is aimed at professionals who wish to gain an in-depth understanding of the venture capital investment (‘VC’) process. This session is highly practical and interactive involving case studies, group work and roundtable discussions.

All elements of the venture capital investment process are discussed from a commercial and practical perspective, including the structural aspects, resulting from characteristics of the VC funds themselves such as fund strategy and the backgrounds of the investment executives, the operational aspects such as the investment practices of the VC firms which manage the funds and also the wider environmental characteristics such as culture and attitude to risk and the wider ecosystem in which the funds operate.The course is not specifically legally focused and is more of a commercial and business insight into VC firms and funds. It draws on the presenter's recent research into venture capital investment practices in UK, Europe and USA.

If you are working on venture capital transactions, perhaps as a member of a legal or advisory team, or are advising firms on setting up, or evaluating, their investment processes or you are considering forming your own VC firm, this session should enable you to familiarise yourselves with the latest best practices in the VC investment process. If new VC firms and funds are to be set up they could be based on the structural, operational and wider environmental characteristics that have been shown to contribute to better overall fund performance.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive session will cover the following issues:

• Global trends in the venture capital industry
• Current issues in venture capital
• Structural characteristics of VC funds:
• Optimal size of funds
• Sector, stage and geographic focus
• Background and expertise of investment executives
• Responsibility for deals
• Use of venture partners and advisory boards
• Operational characteristics:
• Investment risk approach
• Theme based approach to investment trends
• Focus on disruption
• Use of milestones
• Proactive and reactive deal sourcing
• In-house due diligence
• Investment approval process; investment committees
• Investment terms
• Syndication and collaboration with other investors
• Portfolio reviews including use of metrics
• Optimal exit routes
• Wider environmental factors:
• Risk propensity and ambition
• Proprietary networks
• Regulatory aspects
• Scaling issues
• Technology ecosystems
• Best practice guidelines for VC investing

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.