Frontier Capital: Early Stage Investing for Financial Returns and Social Impact in Emerging Markets

This report outlines the importance and promise of serving low- and lower-middle-income (LMI) populations -- essentially, the groups situated between the very bottom of the pyramid and the existing middle class. As we detail herein, LMI populations have huge unmet needs and face quite a bit of instability -- challenges that can be addressed by innovative business models. We believe companies serving this demographic represent an under-tapped opportunity, both for financial returns and for outsized impact. The LMI segment represents a major market opportunity. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the purchasing power of the LMI population is estimated at $405B. In South Asia, it is estimated at$483B

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

Research of the internet of things business models in Portugal

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThe Internet of Things is a concept that is revolutionizing how “things” and people are interconnected nowadays. The impact it is going to create in the economy and the society is going to be immense and it will change the manner in which we do our personal and corporative daily tasks. This concept was created several years in the past when the first communication machine-to-machine was achieved and with time, the technology has been evolving to what we know as the “Internet of Things”. It is based on networks among sensors, things and people. As the IoT is so diverse, there is not a specific architecture, but several. Depends on the objective of the clients or developers, what do they want to improve or achieve by developing or implementing this technology. The main objectives are making processes as efficient as possible and gather data about several parameters such as, temperature, traffic, speed, product usage, health, machine functioning, among several others. This type of information and technology is very important for entities as it helps them positioning in the market, improve their strategy, differentiate from the competition, create more value, impact for the clients and in the decision making process. For the citizens, the IoT will help them to interact better with public services and increase their life quality, for instance. This dissertation attempts to understand what the IoT is, its architectures and the advantages and disadvantages that exist throughout its implementation. It was also investigated the impact the Internet of Things has in entities, its business models and the entities business models as well in order to understand if they remain the same or go through some changes after introducing these technologies in the entity, and the overall market and economic impact. The method used to obtain these results is based in interviews conducted to several enterprises with experience and direct contact with the IoT

Chasing Cyber Security Unicorns: A Taxonomy-based Analysis of Cyber Security Start-ups’ Business Models

As the number of security incidents increases, a market is emerging for established and new providers of security measures. However, we lack an idea of the business models of cyber security start-ups, which are seen as innovation and security drivers, to protect the economy from existence-threatening incidents. Due to the intangible nature of the cyber threats that security solutions aim to address, previous research on business models cannot be fully transferred. We address this research gap by developing a taxonomy following Nickerson et al. (2013) based on 90 cyber security start-ups and performing a cluster analysis to understand the business activities of cyber security start-ups concerning the protection of critical infrastructures. Our taxonomy will benefit interested decision-makers such as CISOs who want to identify custom-fit cyber security solutions for their organizations. Furthermore, investors and cyber security providers understand the market holistically and can identify innovative product approaches to adopt themselves

BBVA Case Study: The effect of financial performance on shareholders wealth before and after Fintech acquisition

Treballs Finals del Grau d'Empresa Internacional, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020 , Tutor: Emili Batlle Molina[eng] The objective of this Final Degree Project is to analyze whether Fintech acquisitions have improved BBVA's performance, solvency, and liquidity, and then study the relationship between the increase in performance variables with the shareholder value variables comparing the pre-acquisition period and the post-acquisition period with linear regression analysis. First, the acquisition process and the contribution that each Fintech has made at BBVA have been studied. Subsequently, a comparative graphical analysis of the post-acquisition period was carried out to analyze whether the acquisition of the four Fintech companies has increased performance, liquidity, solvency, the efficiency of assets and value for BBVA shareholders. Of these nine variables, those corresponding to performance (ROE, ROA, and EPS) and shareholder value (share price and PER) were selected to carry out linear regression analysis to study their correlation in two different periods. To carry out this study, the annual reports have been consulted to obtain the value of the financial ratios; and shareholder value data has been collected from a research platform called Macrotrend[spa] El objetivo de este Proyecto Final de Grado es analizar si las adquisiciones de Fintech han mejorado el rendimiento, la solvencia y la liquidez de BBVA, y luego estudiar la relación entre las variables de rendimiento con las variables de valor para el accionista comparando el período previo a la adquisición y el posterior a la adquisición período con un análisis de regresión lineal. Primero, se ha estudiado el proceso de adquisición y la contribución que cada Fintech ha hecho en BBVA. Posteriormente, se realizó un análisis gráfico comparativo del período posterior a la adquisición para analizar si la adquisición de las cuatro empresas Fintech ha aumentado el rendimiento, la liquidez, la solvencia, la eficiencia de los activos y el valor para los accionistas de BBVA. De estas nueve variables, las correspondientes al rendimiento (ROE, ROA y EPS) y el valor del accionista (precio de la acción y PER) se seleccionaron para llevar a cabo un análisis de regresión lineal para estudiar su correlación en dos períodos diferentes. Para llevar a cabo este estudio, se han consultado los informes anuales para obtener el valor de los ratios financieros; y los datos del valor para los accionistas se han recopilado de una plataforma de investigación llamada Macrotren

Fostering Startup Ecosystems in India

Because of India’s improving entrepreneurial performance, some analysts consider the country as the next Asian miracle (Huang, 2008). The State's domination over the economy is gradually declining and there are some signs that the country is moving toward a market-oriented system. India has also set explicit policy and objective to become a leading business-friendly economy (World Bank, 2008)

On the Heterogeneity of Digital Infrastructure in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Digital infrastructure represents for startups in entrepreneurial ecosystems an important asset but also a major risk. Drawing on studies about digital entrepreneurship and ecosystems, we examine the determinants of the heterogeneity of startups’ tech stacks in ecosystems. Using publicly available data from the data aggregators Stackshare and Crunchbase, we identify popular endogenous categories in startups’ tech stacks. Then we conduct a visual network analysis and a multivariate regression analysis, utilizing the identified technology categories to measure the heterogeneity of the startups’ tech stacks. The analysis supports the propositions that firm age and increased funding are positively associated with tech stack heterogeneity, whereas funding rounds are negatively associated with tech stack heterogeneity. Implications of our findings on digital entrepreneurship and ecosystems are discussed

Fintech: the next step in banking and finance

Treball Final de Grau en Finances i Comptabilitat. Codi: FC1049. Curs acadèmic: 2016/2017Throughout this dissertation, we will analyse the major changes that digital revolution has meant to the financial world, and how this technological improvements have created new financial platforms which operate separately from the banking sector. We will detailedly examine the segment of financial Startups and how do they work by examining one of the most important Spanish Fintech in the crowdlending market. Overall, it is important to point out the influence of this technological developments for the society and the repercussion these have in traditional banking, which has experienced a big transformation that is allowing it to compete with this new financial players