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Praesens Care, a start-up based in Belgium, has developed a mobile laboratory with the aim of safely testing people for a wide range of killer diseases. Its mobile laboratories enable monitoring of infectious diseases and improve diagnostic capabilities in remote areas in Africa. The case tells the story from its origins to the difficulties encountered in the public health sector, with three questions at the core: what and who are its targets, how to align its operations to achieve them, and how to finance its operations.

Praesens Care, a start-up based in Belgium, has developed a mobile laboratory with the aim of safely testing people for a wide range of killer diseases. Its mobile laboratories enable monitoring of infectious diseases and improve diagnostic capabilities in remote areas in Africa. The case tells the story from its origins to the difficulties encountered in the public health sector, with three questions at the core: what and who are its targets, how to align its operations to achieve them, and how to finance its operations.

In April 2020, the owner and founder of BeanCountr Inc. was reviewing her company's financial performance for its third fiscal year. The company was a financial technology start-up located in London, Ontario, Canada. The owner had already reviewed the company's operating decisions over the past fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2020. She was now eager to review the company's financing and investing transactions.

Wirecard was a German fintech company, member of the DAX30, that provided payment processing and related services. Wirecard had enjoyed large growth rates over the years and most investors and analysts were enthusiastic about the company's prospects. Wirecard's business model was not easy to understand for outsiders, and the company's financials often lacked the necessary details to fully comprehend the company's dealings. Throughout the years, Wirecard had been subject to allegations of fraud, including money-laundering allegations and accounting-fraud allegations, among others. However, up until spring 2020, Wirecard was able to reject these claims. In June 2020, investors and the public learn the truth about Germany's digital darling: a major part of Wirecard's business was fraudulent, and a sum of €1.9 billion, supposedly held in trust accounts in the Philippines, is non-existent. James Freis, who had just been hired as a new member of the Management Board, finds himself interim CEO and is trying to understand how this seemingly massive fraud could have gone undetected for so long, and why it began in the first place.

Could AI-based X-ray scanning platform make flying safer? Airport security officers had just seconds to decide if someone's luggage contained a knife, gun, explosive, or other potential safety threat, and the human eye was not designed to focus for hours on a scanning screen. This case study describes the founding and early years of Synapse Technology, which aimed to improve airport security performance by leveraging advances in computer vision to detect these types of threats with far greater accuracy. The company set out to develop the AI solution they believed would work, building an AI model and then feeding it training data on which types of weapons and other items to flag as a threat, as passengers' luggage went through the screening process. The case study explores the technical as well as entrepreneurial challenges in this new AI frontier, including locating a real-world test venue, and then determining how to measure and explain the return on investment to potential clients.

This two-part case describes the circumstances surrounding a 1989 plane crash in central England. Part A describes what happened in the cockpit as determined by the analysis of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder (black boxes). Part B presents the same events, with added detail, in the form of a comic book depicting the people involved (pilots, passengers, and cabin crew), the physical space they occupied, and their actions and reactions to the unfolding disaster.

This two-part case describes the circumstances surrounding a 1989 plane crash in central England. Part A describes what happened in the cockpit as determined by the analysis of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder (black boxes). Part B presents the same events, with added detail, in the form of a comic book depicting the people involved (pilots, passengers, and cabin crew), the physical space they occupied, and their actions and reactions to the unfolding disaster.

The rise of financial technology companies-"fintechs"-is changing the way money moves around the world, leading to greater financial inclusion and closing a credit gap that historically has hampered small businesses. According to the World Bank, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is the engine driving world economies, representing 90 percent of all businesses worldwide, providing 50 percent of all employment, and responsible for up to 40 percent of national income in developing economies. Even so, research has shown that 65 million businesses-or 40 percent of SMEs in developing economies-face an unmet financing need of $5.2 trillion per year. This gap translates to 19 percent of the gross domestic product of the 128 countries surveyed and attests to the vital role that SMEs play in the world economy as a driver of employment and overall economic health.

Realizing in early 2021 that their pending real estate investment fund would likely be oversubscribed, Drake Real Estate Partners co-founders Nicolás Ibáñez and David Cotterman were considering how best to continue to diversify their investor base and how to optimize operational efficiency as they deployed increasing amounts of capital. Although his family office had funded the company's first fund, Ibáñez added Latin American family investors and some institutions to subsequent funds while Cotterman focused on delivering 20+% returns. As they looked ahead to their fourth fund and beyond, the partners needed to decide how best to develop their firm and their offerings as they worked to attract capital without alienating either their smart-money family investors or their nascent institutional clientele.

In July 2020, Ruben Flores-Martinez had launched a startup, CashDrop, which provided easy and cheap sales options for small businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic helped CashDrop quickly grow. Flores-Martinez, who had previously sought and been denied venture capital funding, suddenly found CashDrop being pursued by venture capital. The case discusses Flores-Martinez's background as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, his previous business ventures, and his concerns about the influence of venture capital on business. The case also discusses the American and global payment platform landscape.

After the events in CashDrop A, Flores-Martinez received two concrete offers from VC funds for his startup business, CashDrop. This case describes the tensions between the two funds: a traditional VC fund who would offer Flores-Martinez a prestigious platform, and a newer VC that focused on funding more diverse companies. The case asks which Flores-Martinez should choose.

After the events in CashDrop A, Jarrid Tingle and Henri Pierre-Jacques, the founders of Harlem Capital partners, worried that Ruben Flores-Martinez, CashDrop's founder, would take another offer while he waited for them to officially make an offer. HCP traditionally took more time to vet their potential investments, but Tingle and Pierre-Jacques did not want Flores-Martinez to pick another VC while he waited. The case asks if they should adjust their terms to be more competitive.

It was June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frances Edmonds, head of sustainable impact at HP Canada Co., the Canadian subsidiary of HP Inc. (HP), was continuing HP's decades-long pursuit of sustainable impact. HP was now committed to using 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic across its personal systems and printers by 2025. However, decreasing commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply challenges, and lowered global collection of recycled content could potentially undermine HP's recycling efforts and goals. Edmonds was considering possible strategic, tactical, and operational actions to cope with the situation and sustain HP's aspirations. Would HP's circular supply chain remain viable and competitive?

In 2020, the flagship location of Jamie's Market, a specialty supermarket retailer in California, struggled to hire enough temporary workers to meet the increased staffing demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The new assistant manager, who had been recently transferred to the company's flagship store, was tasked with figuring out what had gone wrong and recommending changes to ensure that the store would have enough qualified workers for the remainder of the pandemic (or until store sales returned to pre-pandemic levels, whichever occurred first). The assistant manager looked into the company's hiring and socialization processes, spoke with both temporary and permanent workers, and identified at least two reasons for the challenges in hiring temporary workers: insufficient advertising of the job listing for temporary workers, and little or no effort to socialize temporary workers once they were hired. Based on these conclusions, what changes should the assistant manager recommend when hiring the next group of temporary employees?

In late 2018, the chief executive officer and president of Domino's Pizza Japan Inc. was convinced that a substantial expansion in the Japanese market was needed and feasible for continued growth. His company had already grown to nearly 550 stores across Japan, which was over double the number only five years earlier. The company had numerous opportunities to grow further, including opening new markets; opening stores closer to the company's customers; and building on customer insights, new menu offerings, and a new marketing approach. In particular, the chief executive officer wondered whether priority should be given to new markets in Japan that the company had not yet entered, or if priority should be given to greater penetration in Japanese locations where it already operated. What strategy was the best option for expansion in the Japanese market?

Zip Co Limited (Zip) was a market follower in the Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) sector. In September 2020, PayPal Holdings Inc. entered the growing sector, which was expected to disrupt the credit card industry, with better incentives for retailers and consumers. Although investors were concerned, Zip's chief executive officer remained confident about the company's future growth. How could he combat competition against large players like PayPal in the United States? What competitive strategies could he opt for-and could Zip disrupt the credit card industry?

iQIYI Inc. (爱奇艺), which promoted itself as the "Netflix of China," was one of the three largest entertainment streaming platforms in mainland China. It was listed on the Nasdaq (NASDAQ: IQ) after being spun-off from Baidu Inc. (百度) (NASDAQ: BIDU). In April 2020, Wolfpack published a research report on iQIYI, accusing it of inflating revenue numbers, among other things. The report claimed iQIYI's revenue in FY2019 was overstated by 27% to 44%, equivalent to CNY8bn to 13bn. One of the accusations was that iQIYI recorded more than its own share in revenue, and included a large portion of its membership subscriptions bundled with services offered by its business partners.

The (D) case updates the case series from the time of Ant's planned IPO, and the Chinese government's regulatory shifts.

This case addresses the events that took place following the conclusion of the case "Facebook's Libra (A): The Privatization of Money?" In October 2019, several months after the conclusion of the A case, multiple members of the Libra Association announced that they were leaving the project. Observers speculated that the departures were due to Libra's inability to meet regulatory scrutiny. Nevertheless, the Libra Association formed a board and formalized its governance structure with 21 founding members. Through the remainder of 2019 and 2020, Libra made significant changes to its product in an attempt to win regulatory approval. It also changed its name to Diem to distance itself from the controversies surrounding the original Libra product. By December 2020, the proposed cryptocurrency was a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. The Diem Association planned to launch the new currency in early 2021; however, it had yet to secure regulatory approval, even as political skepticism toward the product endured.

In November 2020, the co-founders of DigiPlex study the future growth trajectory of their Nordic data center venture. A critical question was on the agenda: was now finally the right time to sell DigiPlex? Originally a $2.75 million investment in one small data center made in the wake of the dot-com bubble, the Norwegian-based firm had seen tremendous growth in the last two decades. DigiPlex was now worth over a billion dollars and comprised seven data centers across Scandinavia, offering high-speed connectivity powered by sustainable hydro-electric energy.