Karim Nour, the founder of Kashat, an Egyptian nano-lending fintech company, is contemplating how to manage the growth of his startup. Over the summer of 2022, Kashat's loan disbursements had grown by nearly 40%, fueled by macroeconomic instability in Egypt. However, economic uncertainty had also deterred investors from investing in the region. Nour soon began to realize he did not have the funds to maintain the company's rapid growth, in fact, he may not even have the capital to keep the company running. The case explores Nour's journey as he grapples with the concept of 'hibernating' the company, halting lending operations and preserving Kashat's invaluable data algorithm. Within the case, Nour weighs the risks of hibernating versus holding out for funding as he prepares to meet with Kashat's board. He also considers the possibility of being acquired as a means of continued survival for Kashat.
Julia Sohajda was the young, female founding partner of the Hungarian VC firm Vespucci Partners, which focused on investing at seed stage into Hungarian deep tech startups and prepare them for a launch in the U.S market. Vespucci's first fund had largely been comprised of money from the Hungarian Development Bank, which had limited the fund's investment possibilities. Sohajda was now in the process of raising capital for her firm's second fund, targeting exclusively institutional investors and high net-worth individuals. In a country without much generational wealth and a difficult macroeconomic environment, would she be able to reach her goal of collecting €60 million?
In December 2021, Murat Ozyegin, Chairman of Fiba Holding, along with Omer Mert and Ä°hsan Elgin, engaged in discussions about the future of United Payment, a fintech company in which Finberg, a subsidiary of Fibabanka, held a 20% stake. Finberg, established in 2018 as Turkey's first fintech-focused corporate venture capital firm, had invested significantly in United Payment, contributing to its substantial growth in transaction volume from $352 million in 2019 to almost $865 million in 2020. With an offer from OYAK, Turkey's largest pension fund, to invest in United Payment, the leadership team deliberated on whether to accept the proposal or wait for further growth opportunities, considering the company's plans for international expansion and the competitive landscape in the fintech sector. The decision involved weighing the potential benefits of OYAK's investment against the risks of stiff competition and its implications on United Payment's competitive advantage and profitability.
Taffi was a tech-enabled fashion styling startup founded by Shahad Geoffrey in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Within three years of operating, Geoffrey had pivoted the business multiple times. In 2023, Geoffrey was attempting the business's most ambitious pivot yet, shifting away from a consumer facing online fashion stylist marketplace to a B2B model offering an AI-powered fashion styling advisor. The timing seemed right as the AI market in the region was booming, backed by the Saudi government. There was also virtually no competition. Moreover, large businesses had expressed an interest in signing up. The trouble was the AI was not ready yet, it could not generate styling advice on its own and still partially relied on input from the freelance stylists that Taffi attracted through the marketplace. Was this the right time for Taffi to pivot? The case chronicles the founding of Taffi, the pivots it made and why, and describes the challenges Geoffrey faced during her journey of entrepreneurship and how she addressed them. The case serves to provide a founder's account of setting up and operating a startup in Saudi Arabia. The case also explores how Saudi Arabia stimulated the development of a startup ecosystem through a multi-pronged approach, and provides a background venture funding in the region.
Financial service sector Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC) is the venture capital arm of the Korean government with a founding mission to build a domestic startup ecosystem that would be as competitive as Silicon Valley. KVIC manages a basket of funds-of-funds and has become an irreplaceable force in the venture capital market after nearly two decades of operations. As Korea's startup ecosystem matures and private venture capital increases, KVIC's management confronts the question of how to create new values using government resources.
This case study explores the growth journey of Polish computer vision sports start-up ReSpo.Vision in an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem. By providing 3D data and analysis to soccer clubs, ReSpo.Vision achieved significant milestones with a €1 million seed round, an EU innovation grant, and gained traction with top European soccer clubs. However, pressure to accelerate revenue growth led the company to consider a strategic shift towards immersive 3D visualizations for media and entertainment. Ahead of the upcoming funding round in early 2024, CEO Pawel Osterreicher faced a critical decision between scaling the existing business or creating a new business line. The case study highlights the opportunities and challenges associated with this shift in the context of a new and emerging market.
In 2023, the Singapore-based startup company Horizon Quantum Computing was on the cusp of fast expansion and the founder faced the challenge to decide where to open the second office outside Singapore. To make a choice from the list of 10 countries, the founder had to consider the likelihoods of acquiring and competing for talent, developing business partnerships with quantum computer hardware makers, gaining market access for its upcoming product, among other issues. This case study also explores Singapore's startup ecosystem and its years long efforts in building a growth environment for deep tech companies.
Nuwa Capital (Nuwa) was a venture capital firm based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The business was founded in 2020 by Khaled Talhouni and his partners Sarah Abu Risheh, and Stephanie Nour Prince (they were later joined by Nitin Reen and Victor Sunyer). Together, they had a combined experience of nearly 20 years investing in over 300 companies, including some of the Middle East and North Africa's most successful startups. In a startup ecosystem as nascent as theirs, their track record eclipsed most other firms. By August 2021, Nuwa had achieved a first close on its fund and, in response to changing market conditions, pivoted their investment thesis to earlier stage startups. One of the industries they decided to invest in was foodtech, and they had been in advanced stages of conversations with Calo, a Bahrain based foodtech player. The team was conducting their already accelerated due diligence when they received word that another investor had just met Calo and was willing to take Nuwa's spot. Promising founders like Calo's were hard to come by and Nuwa had to decide quickly. The problem was that Calo did not, on the surface, fit Nuwa's thesis. However, it had the potential to only after a pivot. The case chronicles the founding of Nuwa and describes the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and investors in the Middle Eastern startup ecosystem, and Nuwa's decision to pivot their investment thesis. The case also explores how Saudi Arabia and Dubai stimulated the development of a startup ecosystem through a multi-pronged approach. The case then describes Calo, its industry, and Nuwa's investment thesis, and explores whether Nuwa should invest in Calo.
In early 2022, Courtney McColgan, founder and CEO of Runa, a human resources and payroll Software-as-a-Service platform, faced an unexpected tech market downturn. Founded in 2018, Runa catered to small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico, offering an affordable and easy-to-use cloud-based solution. McColgan, a serial entrepreneur from Southern California, firmly believed the platform could disrupt Mexico's vast industry, and become a billion-dollar business. After an initial period of rapid growth during its first 18 months of operations, and amidst hiring a new executive team, Runa's growth began to falter as attracting new clients became increasingly hard, and customer acquisition costs increased. In August 2021, Runa raised more funds amidst an unprecedented expansion in venture capital investment in Latin America, and it deployed additional marketing strategies and developed new products to entice customers. However, by early 2022, the venture scenario grew gloomier, and tech companies began to take cautionary measures. How should Runa adapt to a potentially more limited funding scenario and perhaps even less favorable growth prospects in the short run? Would dramatic structural and strategic changes be needed? Or should McColgan consider shutting down her business and create a new venture?
Philippines-headquartered cloud kitchen CloudEats harbored the ambition of becoming the largest cloud kitchen in Southeast Asia, but it was considering several strategic paths forward.
In the spring of 2023, and following the favorable results of a trial involving its phage cocktail for treating lung infections among cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, the leadership of BiomX had several critical issues to wrestle with. First, given its precarious financial position, with funds to continue operating for about 18 months, the company was considering how it could raise more money. Possibilities included finding a buyer, convincing an entity to take them private with a cash infusion, securing a private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal, and trying to interest institutional investors to buy shares. Second, given the positive results just reported and the pending outcome of ongoing trials, management began assessing the commercial potential for its treatment for lung infections in CF patients. The executives had to define the likely total addressable market (TAM) as well as what could be a reasonable price to charge; other go to market challenges, such as educating the medical community and convincing payers to cover the treatment, would also need to be overcome. Lastly, if the ongoing trials in CF patients also produced positive results and additional funding was secured, the company had to decide on future R&D efforts. Options ranged from developing and testing phage cocktails to treat low-risk/low-reward conditions (such as prosthetic joint infections or PJI), medium-risk/medium-reward conditions (such as infections associated with atopic dermatitis), or high-risk/high-reward conditions (such as inflammatory bowel disease or IBD).
Founded by a formerly incarcerated job seeker, Honest Jobs' mission is to be the hub where people with criminal records come to build careers and employers come to find great talent. Honest Jobs faced early challenges as a two-sided platform for justice-involved job seekers and employers, but by 2022, the organization had partnered with 1,200+ employers and supported 40,000+ job seekers who were reintegrating with society. As 2023 approached, founder and CEO Harley Blakeman looked to raise a Series A round to supplement the $3M+ that had been raised in prior rounds. The decision Blakeman faced was whether to pursue impact-oriented VC firms or traditional firms and how much money to raise given hiring needs and expansion plans.
Founded in 2015, WayCool, is an Indian agri-tech start-up that built a B2B operation acquiring fruits and vegetables from product-specific agriculture companies and small-holding farmers. It sold them to business customers, such as local retail stores, restaurants, and hotels. The B2B strategy leveraged transparency, hygienic practices, and faster material and information flow to increase farmer incomes and reduce food wastage. Next, to enhance its 'inch-wide, mile-deep' approach using technology, WayCool scaled its supply chain using six software solutions: farmer support, procurement, warehousing, distribution to B2B customers, and two retailer solutions. In 2022, it spun off its software applications as a wholly owned tech arm, Censa. WayCool evolved its mission to 'supporting 1% of the global food supply chain.' This growth was supported by funds of $161 million raised over five investment rounds. WayCool's strategy was operating multiple businesses, tackling all aspects of the supply chain, in a historically informal sector in an emerging market. But the founders had to consider the risks. Multiple business streams increased complexity, and the founders were often asked, was WayCool spreading itself too thin? To ensure sustained performance over the long term, should WayCool focus on building all its businesses or narrow its focus?
Founded by two former Sequoia Capital partners, Columbus-Ohio-based Drive Capital's mission was to build a world-class venture capital firm in the middle of the U.S., an area historically overlooked by VCs. Drive faced early challenges of attracting investors, sourcing talent, and building entrepreneurial ecosystems, but by 2022, the firm had invested in over 90 portfolio companies and had assets under management of over $2 billion, making it the largest VC firm outside the coasts. In the Winter of 2022, cofounder and CEO Chris Olsen contemplated an investment into Forge Biologics, an Ohio-based gene therapy contract development and manufacturing company. The partnership weighed the pros and cons in the context of the fund's overall portfolio and macroeconomic headwinds facing the industry.
The case opens in January 2022 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are looking over the performance of the newly launched "buy now, play later" feature. The traction looks promising and seems to deliver more share of wallet per customer, so the co-founders are trying to envisage how big this business could get and whether it would overtake Bazaar's core business. The case provides a background on the launch of the delayed payment feature-it seems low risk and additive to the core business and is financed by the capital previously raised. The competitive environment is bound to heat up and the co-founders need to decide how best to sustainably grow this new business while also expanding the B2B business across 15 cities in the next six months.
The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to its customers, the thousands of mom-and-pop stores around Pakistan. Since its founding in mid 2020, the company has been growing its core business full throttle and also launched a digital ledger app to help with customer acquisition. Meanwhile, the co-founders are growing the team and geographically expanding Bazaar's operations beyond Karachi. Jawaid and Jangda need to weigh the pros and cons of branching out to financing and decide, with so much going on, whether this is the right time for such a move. The case provides a background on Pakistan, its retail and e-commerce space to then talk about Bazaar's founding story and its founders' ambitious mission to create a generational story in and for Pakistan. The case then talks about the company's pillars: technology, warehousing and logistics, and culture in detail and provides details on its day-to-day operations. Next, the case chronicles the company's growth both product -wise and geographically. Bazaar is trying to take a stake and solidify its place in the booming $170 billion retail market in the world's fifth-most populous nation which is yet to see much deployment of technology, and is in hypergrowth mode with a number of competing priorities. The co-founders need to decide if venturing into financing now is a good idea and whether it would take away from the company's sharp focus on the B2B business and its culture that the co-founders so passionately built. The decision is made more complicated, because the company has the funds to deploy and many think that financing will also fuel the growth of the core business.
Jake Lisby, co-founder and CEO of Simplifyy, a property technology startup in Kansas City, Missouri, was both exhausted and exhilarated by the flurry of activity surrounding the pivot of the business model in late 2021. Simplifyy, a venture-backed PropTech company, was transforming from a full-service property management company to a pure SaaS player, selling end-to-end software to "simplify" the labor-intensive property management industry. Lisby, a Missouri native, knew that the change was not without its challenges. Running a software business in the Midwest, which lacked the entrepreneurial ecosystem of other well-known tech hubs, made it challenging to attract the necessary talent, customers, and fundraising. But the upside of pure SaaS company was attractive, and his team knew that not only to survive but to thrive, they had to get this right.