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This is part of a three-case series that follows Dulcie Madden's journey as a founder over five years. Case (A) is about managing growth and cash flow; Case (B) is about the exit decision and conditions on a sale; Case (C) shows Madden dealing with adversity and the choice of "when to quit?"

The case opens in 2019 as Aytul Ercil, co-founder and CEO of Vispera, computer vision technology provider for retail, is contemplating the company's agenda trying to decide how to prioritize the impeding options. The case chronicles the founding of Vispera, the iterations of its technology and its business model, and lays the ground for the competitive outlook. The case provides a detailed overview of how Vispera's technology and its automated visual analysis help retail and fast-moving consumer goods companies around the world to minimize stock-outs, increase sales, reduce personnel costs, and improve operational efficiency. In 2016, the debut of Amazon Go urges the retail players to up their game vis-à-vis technology. Demand for automation and computer vision in the retail surges. In a land-grab market, Vispera strives to grow globally, differentiate itself, keep its technology cutting edge, and raise capital. In 2019, taking a step back from all of the daily to-dos, Ercil needs to consider the big picture for making Vispera a leading global player. She needs to consider the following: Should the team focus on developing shelf availability and out-of-stock prediction capabilities or focus on dynamic pricing, customization, and real-time campaign management? Should Vispera pivot to provide insights beyond the shelf as was already being done by players entering the space? How should the team think about data ownership: Could Vispera leverage the data to drive cross industry insights or market level perspective?

This note describes how historical and on-going policies and practices that discriminate against African Americans led to present-day inequality. Topics include slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, "black codes," and policies and practices relating to criminal justice, housing, and education.

India's start-up ecosystem is amongst the largest globally, with a variety of funding options from angel investors, venture capital and corporate venture capital to debt. Classic consumer focused start-ups which look to leverage technology have been able to raise significant amounts of capital but the situation is more challenging for deep science and technology focused startups. This note focuses on these issues and the factors behind them.

This note describes the most common financial ratios and how they provide insight into firm performance. The emphasis is on how ratios summarize operating behaviors and results in ways that facilitate interpretation and highlight decisions. There are three broad categories of ratios covered in the note: profitability, operating efficiency, and leverage (the use of debt financing). The note defines the ratios, explains how they provide insight, and explores complications related to their use. The concepts in this note are applied to the firm Morgan Industries, a setting that has been integrated across all the Financial Analytics Toolkit series of technical notes.

In 2018, Al Baba Sweets was a major player in the Arabic sweets and confectionery industry in Lebanon. However, in the midst of a rough patch in the country's economy, the company was suffering from decreasing revenues. Any major decision concerning the future of the third-generation family business would have to be made carefully. New, smaller competitors were entering the market alongside the industry's large, long-time players. The company had to decide what its next steps would be. Should Al Baba Sweets branch out to other countries? If so, which modes of entry should they use? What other possibilities were there to enhance and expand operations?

In late 2017, the co-owners of Rocky Mountain Soap Company in Canmore, Alberta, faced an important challenge. Their company produced and retailed toxin-free, 100 per cent natural bath and body products, and they wanted the product packaging to reflect their company's commitment to sustainability. To meet the challenge of identifying and implementing sustainable packaging solutions, the co-owners needed to address intensifying competition, make good use of their limited ability to conduct research and development, and manage their customers' expectations. How could the co-owners develop a packaging solution that aligned with the company's brand focus of "100 per cent natural"? How could they find the support they needed to move the company forward?

The case focuses on the risks and rewards of early-stage investing in a successful emerging market consumer start-up (i.e. non-tech), from seed funding in 2004 to raising expansion capital in 2019. We observe the founder of Sula Vineyards, a winemaker from the Nasik Valley in India, as he makes decisions about external fundraising. Case (A) takes the seed investor perspective. It follows Deepak Shahdadpuri, who stays invested in Sula for 13 years, gradually reducing his equity stake along the way. Cases (B) and (C) follow the company as it raises successively larger rounds of funding to fuel its growth and international expansion. As the Sula brand and CEO Rajeev Samant become increasingly well-known, the company attracts the attention of diverse investors ranging from European family offices, Asian institutional investors, venture capital and growth equity, and sovereign wealth funds. Given its emerging market setting, the case can be used to explore investment risks from political and regulatory uncertainty, and currency risk for US$-based institutional investors.

The case focuses on the risks and rewards of early-stage investing in a successful emerging market consumer start-up (i.e. non-tech), from seed funding in 2004 to raising expansion capital in 2019. We observe the founder of Sula Vineyards, a winemaker from the Nasik Valley in India, as he makes decisions about external fundraising. Case (A) takes the seed investor perspective. It follows Deepak Shahdadpuri, who stays invested in Sula for 13 years, gradually reducing his equity stake along the way. Cases (B) and (C) follow the company as it raises successively larger rounds of funding to fuel its growth and international expansion. As the Sula brand and CEO Rajeev Samant become increasingly well-known, the company attracts the attention of diverse investors ranging from European family offices, Asian institutional investors, venture capital and growth equity, and sovereign wealth funds. Given its emerging market setting, the case can be used to explore investment risks from political and regulatory uncertainty, and currency risk for US$-based institutional investors.

Preferred Networks, Inc. (PFN), a start-up specialized in deep learning technologies, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) research, differentiated itself early on by aligning with Japan's manufacturing might and bringing deep learning to the internet of things (IoT). The case follows the start-up as it evolves into a highly valued company with over 200 employees and global partners across various industries. It offers an overview of the AI business landscape and an explanation of deep learning. PFN's trajectory shows how technology-heavy research firms spark innovation, attract business partners and collaborators, manage as they grow, and decide what business model best suits their needs. The case is intended for use in classes on artificial intelligence, technology and operations management, marketing of complex products and technologies, entrepreneurship and strategic partnerships for research-heavy startups.

In 2011, Samuel Maruta and Vincent Mourou, two Frenchmen living in Vietnam, founded Marou to produce fine chocolate from bean to bar. Just seven years later, Marou had opened two shops in Vietnam and was exporting its chocolate to twenty countries, including the United States, France, Sweden, Japan, and South Korea. The company's brand and business model were deeply rooted in its commitment to using only locally grown cacao beans: Marou had forged close ties with small Vietnamese farmers to create a reliable supply of high-quality beans, vital to the production of exquisite chocolate. While highlighting the values and vision of the company's founders (taste, local purchasing, fair and sustainable trade, prudent and organic growth), the case outlines the company's efforts to secure its supply of cacao beans to ensure the high quality of the chocolate it produced. The case also describes the company's distribution and sales strategies both domestically and internationally. The winner of several international awards and lauded by the New York Times in March 2016 as producing "the best chocolate you've never tasted," Marou seemed to be well positioned in the high-end "bean to bar" chocolate niche.

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the genomic codes of all known species that could be tapped for discovery and innovation, from new medical interventions to more efficient manufacturing processes. He proposed to use blockchain technology to make the data both accessible and trackable so that its use could be monitored. Castilla-Rubio envisioned a time when a company in the U.S. could access a biological asset from the Peruvian Amazon, develop and commercialize a product based on the asset, and have a fraction of the resulting sales land directly in the bank account of various beneficiaries, including the Peruvian government and indigenous communities. Now he was facing major decisions about how to structure EBC to achieve his goals. Should he start at the top and build partnerships with national governments and inter-governmental organizations as the cornerstone of EBC? Or would it be better to forge ahead with a few stakeholders in an entrepreneurial project?

Stephen Scott needed to decide whether to keep his behavioral analytics startup in the people analytics sector or shift his company into the RegTech sector. Starling had develop technology that enabled its customers to anticipate and shape the behavior of their employees by examining company data on employees, including email traffic. Starling had struggled to grow in the people analytics sector while RegTech was an emerging sector that might provide better opportunities to grow.

An examination of the first few years of San Franciso-based, fast-growing furniture and home accessory e-commerce startup, Dot & Bo.

A founder looks back at the issues at play in the final year of failed furniture e-commerce startup, Dot & Bo. He shares his perspective and learnings in the aftermath.

SK Group, one of Korea's largest conglomerates, announced its Double Bottom Line (DBL) initiative in 2018. In January 2019, Chairman Tae-won Chey unveiled the company's pledge not only to monitor and report SK's social value, but also see social value account for 50 percent of the company's key performance indicators. This case study follows SK's shift to DBL management and efforts to place social value at the core of its business model. Social media and a hyper-connected society heaped unprecedented pressure on corporates to deliver value and to make sure no-one was left behind. To implement its DBL initiative, SK, a leading producer of energy, chemicals, telecoms, and semiconductors, needed to investigate how to measure social value created in all its business operations in monetary terms - whether value created (positive value) or value destroyed (negative value). SK began to measure its indirect contributions to the economy and business activity, in addition to social contributions like employee volunteer programs, and SK donations and CSR activities. These efforts covered all aspects of SK's operations, from the 3,600 SK-operated gas stations throughout Korea to water-free scrubbers designed to process impurities discharged during semiconductor production. The case also looks at SK's efforts to explore new institutional frameworks to multilateralize its social value agenda, to build a common and actionable approach to social value creation and measurement within the broader global business community.

In 2018, Changsheng Bio-technology Co., Ltd. (Changsheng), a leading biopharmaceutical company and one of the market leaders in vaccines, was found to have falsified its production and inspection data and to have sold substandard vaccines in the Chinese market. The unethical conduct triggered widespread public anger and immediate government intervention. What actions could Changsheng take to mitigate the effect of this scandal?

On February 24, 2016, HTL International Holdings Ltd (HTL), a Singapore-based furniture company, announced that it had entered into a purchase agreement with Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co. Ltd (Yihua). According to the agreement, which was subject to approvals, Yihua would pay SG$1.00 for each share of HTL. However, the agreement required that HTL meet set profit targets in each of the next three years. A compensation agreement between HTL's controlling shareholder and Yihua stipulated that if HTL did not make its profit targets, HTL's controlling shareholder would make up the shortfall to Yihua. When the agreement was announced, HTL's share price was at $0.70, and the $0.30 gap signalled uncertainty about whether Yihua's shareholders would agree to the acquisition. Minority shareholders and potential investors, who were not bound by the profit guarantee, needed to decide whether they should buy, sell, or hold HTL's shares.