Global MBA Entrepreneurship Class | Venture Capital Investment Simulation

Team post-pitch with the Vinidaily team

Blog post by Hans Koenig, Student Ambassador, Strategy & Digital Leadership, Global MBA

Carla Carfagno from Vinidaily pitching to the students

Vivianna He’s introduction to entrepreneurial financing is a prime example of fast-paced, experiential, hands-on learning. To better understand how start-ups secure funding for their initiatives from Venture Capital (VC) firms and investors, the Strategy & Digital Leadership track of ESSEC’s Global MBA participated in a day-long VC Investment Simulation with a few very special guests. This simulation is part of the Entrepreneurship class-a core element of the GMBA program.

The day began with two startups, CAPS and Vinidaily, presenting their companies and speaking with the students about their ideas. Next, a group of GMBA students, acting as VCs, broke out into teams to begin the analysis of their assigned company. VC teams further had an opportunity to meet with and learn more from the founders and further discuss select details, such as core business strategies and financials, before creating presentations for their investors. After much discussion, and sometimes heated debate, VC teams readied themselves for presenting to a panel of Limited Partner (LP) investors, acted by a different group GMBA students and experienced investors Guillaume Gaillet and Nicolas Landrin, detailing their investment strategies and terms.

“It was extremely interesting and inspiring to understand the ‘behind the scenes’ aspect of an entrepreneurial project, especially the fund-raising part.” - GMBA student Julien Mendez, avid triathlete and aspiring entrepreneur.

At the end of the extremely busy day, the class enjoyed a final opportunity to reflect on the activity, getting a chance to speak further with one of the startups as well as experienced VC and investment professionals. As mentioned by GMBA student Aswini Tara Akunuri, a former project manager from Singapore, “…it was really interesting to experience the investor’s point of view of what they look for when investing in a start-up, very eye-opening!”

These lessons learned, along with an abundance of knowledge from previous classes, will be used as the students prepare to pitch their own startup ideas at the end of the term. Wish them luck!