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Drive Capital: A New Road for Venture

Gompers, Paul A.; Dadlani, Alicia

Product #:823056
Supplier:Harvard Business School
Discipline:Entrepreneurship
Setting:Ohio;United States, 2022
Details:Case (PDF) • 28 pages • 2023-04-01

Subjects:

EntrepreneurshipInvestment managementStart-upsStrategyVenture capitalFinance and investingEntrepreneurship

Industries:

Financial service sector

Geography:

OhioUnited StatesNorth America
Your Price:$12.40

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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.

Learning Objectives

Students will gain an understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing a venture capital firm that operates outside the traditional technology epicenters as it strives to establish itself as a world-class operator. Students will also evaluate the firm's strategy and investment approach as they assess whether the firm should invest in a biotech startup in the region.
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Case Study: Drive Capital: A New Road for Venture (English version) | Ivey Publishing