Entrepreneurship
March 2017
Raising capital for Financial Butler (A) (Chinese language)
By Bryan Stroube, Michael Bikard, Ken Mark
This case focuses on Nick Hungerford’s attempt to raise capital for his FinTech start-up, Financial Butler, (later renamed Nutmeg). The concept is a digital platform offering a revolutionary, transparent and fair service to an “untapped” market segment currently not served by wealth managers, ...
May 2023
Nova Ventures: Searching for gems in the UK
By Luisa Alemany, Florin Vasvari
Zakib Sari, an aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur who had worked for Shell UK for several years, decided to pursue the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition path after his first year of the MBA programme at London Business School (LBS). In January 2016 he analysed several career options and concl...
May 2023
Tata Sky: Experimentation and adoption (B)
By Jessica Spungin, Julian Birkinshaw, Harit Nagpal
Harit Nagpal, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Sky Ltd, the largest satellite TV distribution platform in India, was returning from the Consumer Electronics Show 2017 in Las Vegas. What he had seen there was enough to make him question the viability of the business he headed. He did not want to thi...
March 2023
Finance for Entrepreneurial Companies: Financing Instruments – Technical Note (Spanish language)
By John Mullins, Robert M Johnson, Steve Pesenti
Brand valuation is the process of estimating the financial value of a brand. The valuation of brands as intangible assets emerged in the 1980s, when brands were first capitalized on post-M&A balance sheets. Brands are also valued for non-reporting purposes...
February 2023
Cree (C)
By John Mullins, Elizabeth Philp
Another four years had passed, and it was now April 2018. After two attempts to shut down the venture totally, Hubert Rhomberg’s father Walter-Heinz presented Hubert with an opportunity to buy their cash-burning company, CREE, for €1. CREE had been “his baby” for the better part of a decade,...
February 2023
Cree (B)
By John Mullins, Elizabeth Philp
After having been spun out of the family business, CREE’s progress had been disappointing, to say the least. Despite the fact that two towers had been built using CREE’s innovative approach, and to considerable acclaim, it was proving difficult to sell additional projects. The result was that CR...
February 2023
Cree (A)
By John Mullins, Elizabeth Philp
Hubert Rhomberg was contemplating the wall of photographs at the entrance to the headquarters of his family business, Rhomberg. They showed the history of the company and his forefathers. With such rich heritage, should he really be pushing for innovation so strongly? But if he didn’t, he would be...
September 2022
Feedr (B)
By Gary Dushnitsky, Kathryn Larin
The case describes the journey of Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton (MBAs from HBS and LBS respectively) who launched, scaled and sold London-based startup Feedr during the second half of 2010. Feedr introduced a sustainable solution offering nutritionally healthy food by leveraging technology to drive pe...
September 2022
Feedr (A)
By Gary Dushnitsky, Kathryn Larin
The case describes the journey of Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton as they launched, scaled and sold London-based startup Feedr during the second half of 2010. Feedr provided nutritionally healthy food to the workplace by leveraging technology to drive personalisation in choice and scale. Case A follo...
June 2022
Anne Boden at Starling Bank: Disrupting an industry
By Herminia Ibarra, Luisa Alemany, Nick Mickshik, Ken Mark
The case describes the start-up and evolution of UK-based digital bank Starling. Founded in 2014, Starling offered personal and business accounts, and lending products, promising a better customer-service experience, faster approvals and a more digital-friendly approach than traditional banks. By 20...