The case describes how Lemonade, a leading Insurtech startup, expanded its business with a unique AI-powered digital insurance model and a "giveback" charity scheme after its spectacular IPO in 2020. The focus is how its scale-up efforts encountered challenges both externally and internally when it expanded its product portfolio and geographic scope. Lemonade is an exemplary case of hyper-growth startups who aspire to disrupt a legacy industry with digital technologies and novel business models. Yet, how these startups become scalable and sustainable is less understood by both scholars and practitioners. For example, Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), a leading academic journal on entrepreneurship, announced a call for special issue in 2022 with a theme on "Scale-ups, Scaling, and Scalability: Entrepreneurial Scaling in the Digital Age". This case fills in this gap by examining how Lemonade scaled up during its growth stage, how its scale-up efforts met internal and external resistance, and how to draw valuable lessons.

Ping An OneConnect Bank (Hong Kong) Limited is a virtual bank that has pioneered the use of Fintech to provide efficient banking services to both SMEs and retail customers. The bank uses innovative credit risk and loan pricing models that rely on big data analytics, including detailed customs data for its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers in the import/export business.

The case describes how Lemonade, a notable insurance technology (insurtech) startup, created and developed a novel business model with social impact. The case also explains how entrepreneurs leverage their experience, creativity, and more importantly, knowledge from behavioral science to tackle challenges in a century-old industry. For undergraduate or master's students, the instructor can stimulate discussion on how to develop creative business ideas and how to improve the robustness of a novel business with scientific knowledge, especially social sciences such as social psychology. Another fascinating aspect of this case is that Lemonade organically integrates social impact into its core business model without engaging in public relations-like campaigns. For a deeper discussion, the instructor can introduce a few fundamentally debated topics in business schools. For example, can a business be scientifically guided? Simply put: is running a business art or science?

The case demonstrates how Ant Financial, the leading Fintech company in China, carried out an innovative CSR project-Ant Forest and how the project creatively integrates social goals with business practices to create a significant social impact as well as strategic values. Ant Forest is an exemplar showcasing how an environmental initiative can synergize with the core competence of a Fintech company. For undergraduate or master students, the instructor can stimulate discussion on popular CSR practices and on how to improve their effectiveness by introducing creative designs such as gamification. For an in-depth discussion, the instructor can introduce the strategic thinking behind CSR activities and the implicit competition between firms and nonprofit organizations in delivering social goods.

This case describes how Lufax, a corporate spin-off from its parent company---Ping An Group China, started its peer-to-peer lending business model in China and grew into a comprehensive asset management platform and hence a rather independent corporation on its own. The case documents the story behind the founding of Lufax and its milestone events. In particular, this case focuses on the internal tension between two competing business logics: "Internet logic" that values fast user growth and formalizes procedures later vs. "Finance logic" which emphasizes risk control and manageable growth. Such tension is exemplar among many Fintech companies in China, a developing country that experiences explosive growth in novel financial services and poor regulatory environment simultaneously. The instructor can use this case to illustrate key topics in strategy and corporate entrepreneurship such as how incumbent firms encourage innovation from within via spin-offs. The instructor can also adopt this case to examine the unique competition landscape in China Fintech and compare it to other Fintech cases such as P2P lending in US (e.g. Lending Club) or in UK (e.g. Zoppa).

The case allows students to explore the speed with which investors are adopting social trading platforms and the issues surrounding global regulation of this growing phenomenon using eToro as an example. As the world's largest social trading platform, eToro has more than 8 million registered users across 140 countries as of early 2018. This case study examines how eToro developed an alternative investment channel for millions of retail investors and semi-professional investors, compared to conventional channels such as mutual or hedge funds. eToro's case illustrates several core claims undergirding the recent fintech trend, including democratization of investment entries, disintermediation between investors and traders, and, ultimately, financial decentralization with numerous, easily set up, small funds. The instructor can encourage students to think about how new social trading platforms and copy trading fundamentally differ from conventional investment approaches, how fintech startups' technologies and business models challenge existing regulations, and how eToro can further grow its business to the next level. The case can be used as part of a postgraduate-level business strategy or financial technology course or for undergraduate entrepreneurship and innovation courses.

The case describes how Quantopian, a Python-based trading-algorithm development and backtesting platform, leverages its community of quantitative traders ("quants") to develop a novel crowdsourced hedge-fund model. The case provides an overview of the existing hedge-fund industry and illustrates a few potential issues to be addressed by startups. The case also introduces crowdsourcing as a novel business model and its applications in the emerging financial-technology ("Fintech") field. The instructor can connect the case to the fundamental design of organizations based on contractual arrangements and how exactly a crowdsourcing model challenges conventional wisdom about organizing business activities. The instructor can also stimulate a discussion on alternative growth models or strategies for Fintech startups, such as Quantopian, and practical solutions to challenges.

The case illustrates how Mad Head Limited ("Mad Head"), the developer of a smash hit mobile game, Tower of Saviors ("TOS"), became financially successful by imitating another well-known product on the market. The story presents background on the founders and the company from its inception as an e-cards business to the release of TOS. The case is intended to stimulate debates on topics such as imitation vs. innovation, viable business models for start-ups and the ethical concerns associated with an imitative approach. If time permits, the instructor can also guide discussion to more in-depth topics such as the distinction between Schumpeter's and Kirzner's views on entrepreneurship and their economic implications.