Gradu NiklasWasama 20190124 - Final
Gradu NiklasWasama 20190124 - Final
Gradu NiklasWasama 20190124 - Final
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Table of contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 8
1.1 Purpose and focus of this research ............................................................................................. 10
1.2 Research objectives and research questions .............................................................................. 12
1.3 Research methods......................................................................................................................... 13
1.4 Structure of this thesis ................................................................................................................. 13
2 General Background ................................................................................................................ 14
2.1 Defining a startup company ........................................................................................................ 14
2.2 Healthcare analytics ..................................................................................................................... 16
2.2.1 Examples of Finnish healthcare analytics companies ................................................................ 19
2.3 The venture capital business ....................................................................................................... 20
2.3.1 VC Funds and their structure ..................................................................................................... 22
2.3.2 Why are VCs different to other investors? ................................................................................ 24
2.3.3 Venture Capital – Finnish story ................................................................................................. 27
2.3.4 Venture Capital – Startup lifecycle ............................................................................................ 28
2.3.5 Venture capital – return and risk................................................................................................ 30
3 What we know about start-up valuation................................................................................ 33
3.1 Startup value as a process ........................................................................................................... 33
3.1.1 General difficulties of valuation of startups ......................................................................... 35
3.2 Investment criteria of VCs .......................................................................................................... 37
3.2.1 Detailed summary – Entrepreneur and Team criteria ....................................................... 41
3.2.2 Detailed summary – Product and Service criteria .............................................................. 42
3.2.3 Detailed summary – Market................................................................................................... 44
3.2.4 Detailed summary – Finance................................................................................................. 46
3.2.5 Detailed summary – Other criteria and Intuition ................................................................. 47
3.2.6 Summary – all criteria................................................................................................................ 48
3.3 Quantitative methods used in the valuation of startups ........................................................... 49
3.3.1 DCF method............................................................................................................................... 51
3.3.2 Multiples method ....................................................................................................................... 54
3.3.3 Sum of the parts method ............................................................................................................ 56
3.3.4 Berkus method ........................................................................................................................... 58
3.3.5 Risk factor method ..................................................................................................................... 59
3.3.6 Venture capital approach ........................................................................................................... 60
3.3.7 First Chicago method ................................................................................................................. 62
3.3.8 Real options method .................................................................................................................. 63
3.3.9 Valuations of intangible assets .................................................................................................. 65
3.3.10 Summary of quantitative valuation ....................................................................................... 68
4 Literature review...................................................................................................................... 70
4.1 Venture capital in context of healthcare analytics startups ..................................................... 71
4.2 Business valuation in context of healthcare analytics startups ................................................ 75
5 Empirical research – Semi-structured interview .................................................................. 76
5.1 Research approach (methodology) ............................................................................................. 76
5.2 Description of data gathered / used ............................................................................................ 79
5.3 Results ........................................................................................................................................... 81
5.3.1 Quantitative valuation methods ................................................................................................. 82
5.3.2 Top 3 most important investment criteria .................................................................................. 85
5.3.3 Entrepreneur and team criteria ................................................................................................... 87
5.3.4 Market criteria ........................................................................................................................... 90
5.3.5 Product / Service criteria............................................................................................................ 91
5.3.6 Financial criteria ........................................................................................................................ 94
5.3.7 Other criteria .............................................................................................................................. 97
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5.3.8 Intuition and its importance ....................................................................................................... 98
5.3.9 Syndicates and their effect on investment decisions................................................................ 100
5.3.10 Future of healthcare technology and VC ............................................................................. 103
6 Summary and Conclusions.................................................................................................... 104
6.1 Conclusions and discussion ....................................................................................................... 104
6.2 Validity of the research and critique ........................................................................................ 110
6.3 Further research opportunities ................................................................................................. 111
7 References ............................................................................................................................... 112
8 Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 120
8.1 Interview questions .................................................................................................................... 120
Table of figures:
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Table of Tables:
Table 1 Five capabilities of analytics in healthcare sector, Source: modified from Wang et al. (2018)
............................................................................................................................................................ 17
Table 2 Big data applications in Healthcare, Source: modified from Mehta and Pandit (2018) ....... 19
Table 3 Advantages of equity investments, Source: modified from PwC (2006) ............................. 26
Table 4 Discount rates of VCs by startup stage, Source: modified from Parviainen (2017) ............. 31
Table 5 VC investment processes, Source: modified from Silva (2004) ........................................... 33
Table 6 Investment Criteria at every financing stage, Source: modified from Eisele et al. (2011) ... 39
Table 7 Areas of VC investment criteria summarized by previous researches, Source: Kollmann and
Kuckertz (2010), modified. ................................................................................................................ 40
Table 8 Ranking of product/service criteria, Source: modified from Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) ..... 43
Table 9 Multiple Analysis, Source : modified from Parviainen 2017, 133 ....................................... 55
Table 10 Example of Berkus method, Source: modified from Alford, H. (2017) ............................. 59
Table 11 Venture capital method, Source: modified from Damodaran (2009, 14-16) ...................... 61
Table 12 Key success factors for medtech startups, Source: modified from Keppler et al, 2015 ..... 74
Table 13 Research method of past researchers, Source: modified from Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) . 77
Table 14 Descriptive statistics of interviewees .................................................................................. 80
Table 15 Quantitative methods used – Interviewee based ................................................................. 84
Table 16 Top 3 criteria – Interviewee based ...................................................................................... 86
Table 17 Entrepreneur and management team criteria – Interviewee based ..................................... 87
Table 18 Market criteria – Interviewee based .................................................................................... 90
Table 19 Product / Service criteria – Interviewee based .................................................................... 92
Table 20 Financial criteria – Interviewee based ................................................................................ 95
Table 21 Other criteria – Interviewee based ...................................................................................... 97
Table 22 Future healthcare fields – Interviewee based .................................................................... 103
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ABSTRACT
Year: 2019
Key words: venture capital, business valuation, investment criteria and healthcare
analytics
The goal of the thesis is to study valuation methods including quantitative and qualitative
(investment criteria) when Finnish venture capital investors valuate and select their investments
in the category of healthcare analytics startups. I will first research how the venture capital works
and different valuation methods they use at valuation stage and then focus more on healthcare
sector and especially healthcare analytics.
At the end I can say that Finnish venture capitalists provide (also in the environment of
healthcare analytics) same results as their peers internationally by preferring traditional valuation
methods mostly multiple and DCF methods. Regarding investment criteria entrepreneur and team
criteria with market rose to be the top two criteria. Product-related criteria especially related to
patents and regulatory environment stood up in importance scale. Financial measures became
important when talking of more mature stage startup (startup life-cycle) investors. In other
criteria one can see special features of healthcare analytics. In general, Finnish VCs tend to
valuate their target companies in the similar manner in comparison to international peers. All in
all, the results provided great important insights information about valuation of healthcare
analytics companies. None of the investors are entirely focusing on healthcare analytics sector so
therefore one could say that the answers are generalistic about different startups from different
industries.
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ABSTRAKTI
Vuosi: 2019
Pro Gradu -tutkielma: Lappeenrannan teknillinen yliopisto, 125 sivua, 11 kuvaa, 22 taulukkoa
Tämän pro-gradun tavoite on tutkia arvostus metodeja niin kvantitatiivisia kuten kvalitatiivisia
(sijoituskriteerit) kun suomalaiset pääomasijoittajat arvioi terveysanalytiikka yrityksiä.
Ensimmäiseksi tutkin, mitä kirjallisuus kertoo pääomasijoittamisesta and arviointimetodeista, joita
he käyttävät sijoitusprosessin arviointivaiheessa erityisesti, kun kohteena ovat terveysala and
terveysanalytiikka yritykset.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Education has been a great journey from comprehensive school, to high school to universities in
Tallinn, Vienna and finally Lappeenranta. I want to dedicate this thesis to all the people who I have
met and supported me through this journey. Education itself with everything what I have learned I
see as important. However, education does not have to end here but learning continues throughout
the life we live. Especially I want to thank to LUT University that has given me the opportunity of
learning what the spirit of working together can achieve. I want to thank you Mikael Collan for
your guidance through the thesis and my whole time as a student at LUT.
Finally, I want to thank my mother who has always been there for me in good and bad times. She
is someone who I can call a role model. She always says never stop believing in yourself. I took
the advice and now I stand here, proud and happy.
17.01.2019 in Helsinki
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1 Introduction
As start-ups are becoming more important for future development in technology sector it is
vital to research how investors especially venture capital companies are valuing them.
Valuing technology is a challenging task as we are going to explore later, and therefore it is
important to dig deeper into different valuation methods.
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Health technology exports from Finland by
regions
1,80% 1,70% 1,20% 1,20%
5,00%
2,20%
2,50% 39,90%
3,70%
8,40%
32,30%
Figure 1 - Technology exports from Finland in 2016, Source: modified from Healthtech.teknologiateollisuus.fi.
(n.d.))
We would like to focus in this thesis on robotics, big data and other IT-solutions with IPR
features. Immaterial rights there are very important in today’s business environment and
hence very important in the role of valuation. This will be discussed later on.
Damodaran, A. (2009) tells that startups are in a large sense important for innovative ideas
and striving economy for better future, below there’s the figure of startup life cycle presented
by him:
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Although startups are little in size sense, they still have a positive impact on the economy
as a whole (Damodaran, A. 2009):
1. Two thirds of new jobs created is because of small companies and startups account
large part of this trend.
2. Startups tend to be very innovative in comparison to traditional bigger corporates that
have a lot to lose if the experiment goes wrong.
3. In the USA and India, it has been evidenced that startups have created economic
growth.
Because of lack of revenues and operating losses they make, they are in search of financing.
Unfortunately, startups tend to lack own financing and running a company requires capital
so they seek finances from private capital i.e. venture capital and private equity. This results
into thoughts that standard valuation methods that need to measure cash flows, growth rates
and other valuation factors are not working for startups. (Damodaran, A., 2009)
All in all, in this research we are striving to look for answers on how venture capital investors
are valuing especially healthcare analytics startups. There are numerous other researchers
like MacMillan (1987) and Tyeberjee & Bruno (1984) who have studied VC investment
criteria and valuation methods brought by VCs. Our focus, however, lies in especially
healthcare analytics startups and how VCs make investment decisions especially in this
context. This special topic has not yet been covered although there are some researches
regarding medical startups (close to healthcare) like Keppler, S.B. et al. (2015) that I am
going to use as a reference and background knowledge.
Lauriala (2004, 51-61) describes the investment process of a venture capital investor. There
is usually feeling of a horror movie between the target companies and venture capital
investors. Company value is not a simple task as it has been described earlier. Venture
capital investor needs to get to know the company as best as possible to measure all the
risks correctly and protect itself by contract negotiations that are described later. This is very
important since it is difficult to cancel a contract of non-public company even though the
company invested in was not fulfilling the expectations of a venture capital investor. Below
in picture 2 (modified from Lauriala, 2004), we can see the investment process from
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beginning to end starting from contacting. During the investment process, venture capital
investor needs the get as wide and deep picture of the company’s state. Negative surprises
like contract details of customers and IPR rights are things that might end the negotiations.
(Lauriala, 2004)
As further research will show to us, there are many ways to view the process. Our focus in
this research is to grasp the concept of valuation and especially valuation methods. There
are, however, other stages briefly conceptualized in this thesis. Simic, M. (2015) points out
that some researches like Zacharakis & Mayer (1998) view that there is no strict way how
the VCs are doing their decision-making and hence even for VCs it is sometimes hard to
justify their investments.
Because of lack of revenues and operating losses they make, startups are in search of
financing. Unfortunately, startups tend to lack own financing and running a company
requires capital so they seek finances from private capital i.e. venture capital and private
equity. This results into thoughts that standard valuation methods that need to measure cash
flows, growth rates and other valuation factors are not working for startups. (Damodaran,
A., 2009)
We are further represented by Damodaran, A (2009) that startups have different life cycles
and methods for valuing startups are different because they grow and factors that affect
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valuation change. Lastly, it is important to view different valuation methods for healthcare
analytics companies. We can assume that since it is a fairly new subject to study since there
are not that many researches done for especially healthcare analytics startups and their
business valuation.
The scope of research will look like this, as the research will go deep in healthcare analytics,
venture capital and VC’s valuation methods:
Venture
capital
Healthcare
Valuation analytics
startups
The objective of this study is to explore the different valuation methods used by venture
capital investors. We must identify various stages of startups to see how different VC
investment criteria and other valuation methods work at each stage. Startups are difficult to
evaluate due to shortage of information available and lack of business model structure with
sales and costs to do evaluation (Damodaran, A., 2009).
Therefore, it’s vital to explore different methods in literature review to find out the most
suitable valuation methods. Because of its enormous potential as becoming the Finland’s
fastest growing industry, we decided to explore Healthcare analytics startups. At the time of
researching there should be continuous monitoring of similarities and also variations in
research results.
The first is to identify through background what are the most important investment criteria
used by Finnish venture capital investors for startups. Secondly, we must identify the key
valuation methods for startups. After this we can continue to the actual literature review
where we concentrate on the special criteria and valuation methods for healthcare startups.
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At the interviews we must connect similarities and differences for information received from
literature review.
The method of research is qualitative research done with interviews. The research questions
are:
• What are the most important valuation methods for startups in the eyes of venture
capital investors found in literature review?
• What are the most used valuation methods by Finnish venture capital investors when
they value healthcare startups?
The method I am using in this thesis is called qualitative research. Since I had some
difficulties finding healthcare analytics startups valuation methods, I need to reflect the
background research and especially VC activity in healthcare as my basis. First of all, we
have different investment criteria and quantitative valuation methods from literature.
The literature found in literature review and background is wide consisting of many aspects
of venture capital, startups and valuation methods. These parts are then connected to the
research conducted.
I interviewed 8 VC investors from Finland who have some or close experience in healthcare
analytics startups. Through the method of semi-structured interviews, I am finding out
answers to my research questions. Since those who are been interviewed may have
different understanding of some of the valuation methods or criteria, one needs to be
extremely careful that they truly capture what is meant by the question.
The thesis is structured so that we have firstly the Introduction where I explain the purpose
of this study, the structure and research method. This is followed by general background
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about venture capital, healthcare analytics and startups and valuation methods. This is
reviewed in section 2. The background section is extensive about the topics discussed. After
this is section 3 we will be still focusing on general background but more detailed into venture
capital investment process and valuation topics. After that, in chapter 4, I will go deeper into
venture capital and valuation methods of VCs (literature review) concerning healthcare
analytics startups. After that I will explain the research methods and go in detail about the
qualitative research regarding the topic. At the end there is space left for conclusions and
limits of the research and references I have used for this thesis.
2 General Background
In General background I am aiming to define some of the key concepts related to the thesis
from startup to healthcare analytics and to venture capital. This chapter will give an overview
about the topics that are important for this thesis until we specialize more into valuation.
Before we can do a valuation on a company we first must ask ourselves what is a startup
and what are the characteristics of startups. Helsinki Chamber of Commerce (2015)
discusses different definitions of startups. People from Twitter were asked about the matter
two following definitions stood out: Start-up is an organization that is looking for
concentrating (scaling) business model. For example, Uber is not a startup since the scaling
business model has already put into action and it has worked. A regular barber shop is not
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a startup unless it develops new shampoo. Fresh commercialized business that seeks to be
defined as a startup.
In summary, definition focus is on scaling the business. Most importantly, startups tend to
focus on solving a problem and try to make money out of the innovation (Helsinki Chamber
of Commerce, 2015). Startup can also be thought as a phase of something for example in
company’s path to go public. There is no specific measurement in terms of revenue of when
a startup is not startup anymore. But with lack of better measurement, when a startup has
its place in the world and can be seen as continuous business it can no longer be seen as
startup. (Helsinki Chamber of Commerce, 2015)
Damodaran, A., (2009) characterizes startups as young companies with very little history
behind them. Therefore, measuring objectively value of the business is hard. Secondly, due
to short time-span, startups have usually generated very low revenues and usually costs
are related to pay the business founding instead to putting them to increase revenues.
Thirdly, startups are usually highly dependent on private sources rather than public. Firstly,
persons like family members and friends are important in asking for money for business.
After that venture capital comes along when the business is stable and revenues are to
grow. Venture capital will be part of the ownership of the business by owning shares.
(Damodaran, 2009)
Other characters of startups are multiple equity claims. Different investors make different
contracts with the companies because these investors want to be safe in case of share
dilution, or that they will get their investment back first in case of liquidation. Investments are
illiquid because Investments are non-public and in many cases, differ in sizes. (Damodaran,
2009)
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Naturally, these characters might be tempting for entrepreneurs themselves but can be very
difficult for valuator to do valuation. In eyes if a valuator, the most key features to understand
are the market size, how well does the company compete against others in the market to
get a market share, costs of R&D and the technology itself behind the service/product
(Goldman, 2008)
Because of lack of revenues and operating losses they make, startups tend to lack own
financing and running a company requires capital so they seek finances from private capital
i.e. venture capital and private equity. (Damodaran, 2009)
European Union (2016) emphasizes the technology and digitalization of health. According
to that research (European Union, 2016) the growing business employs over 10 0000 people
and 300 companies around it. In 2015 Finland’s export of health technology was over 1,9
billion euros that is the largest piece of export in high technology sector. Finnish Government
has decided to support healthcare technology in its agenda. Healthcare technology has two
drivers: We live longer and Digitalization. Even though we are expected to live longer, this
does not mean healthier life when we are old. In the whole EU over half a million people die
because of chronic diseases and this results in costs on 115 billion euros. This indicates
that there have to come changes. Healthcare systems must have better efficiency in order
to save lives by investing more into people’s health and preventing diseases. Healthcare
systems should be at hands easier including less expensive systems, waiting times and
reachability must be better in the future. Healthcare systems must be more flexible in terms
of expectancy of dealing with issues like aging, chronic diseases and budgeting. This calls
for re-organizing by development of eHealth, mobile solutions and digitalism in healthcare.
Finnish exports to healthcare technology grew up to 2,2 billion euros in 2017. The purpose
of healthcare technology is shared with EU (2016) article. Especially Koivikko, K (2018)
emphasizes that bigger companies work as drivers and use startups as suppliers in
innovations, especially opening doors to sales and marketing function is important for
startups. Venture capital is especially needed when the business goes global scale.
Entrepreneur and the management team must be aware of the risks and forecasts need to
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be realistic to be competitive for the funding process. Also, market knowledge is crucial.
These factors are the most usual problem fields with startups. (Koivikko 2018)
Thanks to internet, people can view and ask for help in health issues and it does not restrict
on one spot or time of the day. Yet you can test your blood sugar for example and analyze
the results but today patients want to observe and control their own health for example
through a mobile app. This transition can be viewed as “from providers to patients”. Now
more interestingly, people are having more and more connection to their health records and
options whether they want to share that information to anyone. (The Economist, 2018)
In their research Wang et al. (2018) found five capabilities of analytics in healthcare. We
will list them and discuss more about them in table below:
Capability Description
Analytical It helps to process a large amount of data that can be different in dimensions like style or
capability for variety and velocity. Patterns are found in EHRs through different links as a show of
patterns of evidence. These tools are helpful in analyzing patient data volume vise and visualize it.
care This will serve again as a tool of better efficiency in health care organizations. Additionally,
this will help organizations to take part in different experiments and market research for
new ventures.
Unstructured Organizations gather data in and out of health care sector. This data is put into for example
data analytical NoSQL databases. Then filters are used by defined criteria. Finally, you analyze the
capability results. Unstructured data is not simple to store by orthodox ways so improving storage
systems for unstructured data is very important. This ability is crucial since almost 80% of
data gathered in health care sectors are unstructured. The applications could be better
marketing, customer segmentation and analyzing revenue. One hospital found 30 cases
through unstructured file analysis that are to be improved in the future.
Decision This capability has the purpose of presenting day-to-day reports to support managers in
support their work. Decision support contains among others comparing times series and past
capability summary. The usage is by greatest in gathering evidence for better medication i.e. better
patient service. Dashboards are used widely to visualize the analysis.
Predictive Machine learning are neural networks among others are the tools to connect historical
capability and today’s data to predict future better. This way has diminished uncertainty when
managers are planning resources of heath care organizations for example. Texas Health
Harris Methodist Hospital Alliance has taken predictivity to follow patients’ movements in
elderly. Additionally, predictivity helps to identify and seek solutions for better financial
and efficiency management for patient care. Also, this has helped in analyzing patients’
dietary, how he/she lives and disease control.
Traceability Health care data are gathered real (or near) from health care service providers and in
order to locate the output data one should use big data analytics tools. This is definitely
needed as data masses are so large nowadays.
One of the tools is Telehealth response watch that can identify the place and patients’
live health data etc. This information is stored at NoSQL and Hadoop databases. In the
same way works also data through RFID to tackle future actions better.
Table 1 Five capabilities of analytics in healthcare sector, Source: modified from Wang et al. (2018)
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Raghupathi & Raghupathi (2014) supports Wang et al. (2018) in seeing similar and
additional advantaged analytics could provide (Raghupathi & Raghupathi 2014):
• Giving to patient the information they need to follow up their health and make
decisions based on the information
• Search and find treatments and processes that bring value and are cost-effective
• Research events and risk factors that could lead to negative outcomes and how to
treat them in the best manner
• Utilize the usage and information from health monitors at home
• Identify risks to be treated in case of sudden disaster.
When we are thinking of concrete usage place for healthcare analytics, Belle et al. (2015)
summarizes various groups of usage of big data analytics especially in Healthcare industry:
One is image processing where X-ray and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and
ultrasound are perhaps among some other best known for acknowledged images in
medicine. They are used to identify for diagnosis and treatment and its planning. (Belle et
al. 2015)
Second one is signal processing. It can be described as monitor devices are attached to
people and these devices gather enormous amount of data from patients. Amount of data
is not the only concern in this field but also that signal processing needs to be more
connected into actual state and situation of the patient. This would help in predictive
medicine. The trend of today is that healthcare programs tend to apply only one source of
data in predicting emergency-needed cases but the author argues that there should be more
R&D in multidimensional time series. (Belle et al. 2015)
Edwards, J (2016) writes that Stanford university has figured out a way (MOZART) of
applying signal processing in finding tumors in different layers of your body for example
blood and skin. It can detect variety of diseases and several types of each illness. It tackles
a key issue that is separating healthy cells from bad ones. (Edwards, 2016)
Third one is genomics that can be translated as medical research based on each patient’s
genes has been under a great reform in the field of healthcare analytics. P4 (predictive,
preventive participatory and personalized) initiative is on its way to help to analyze various
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stages of illness, blood analytics, come up with issues in big data masses and programming
personalized profile from all the data. (Belle et al. 2015)
However, Mehta and Pandit (2018) identified and summarized in the table 2 below they
several cases and purposes of health care analytics in the history.
Table 2 Big data applications in Healthcare, Source: modified from Mehta and Pandit (2018)
In the publication revealed by Blue Print Genetics in 2017 they announced a 14-million-euro
funding round and previously a new venture funds have joined in. By the 2017 Blueprint
Genetics has raised 23-milion-euros. With the new funding the company is willing to enter
new markets and strengthen their R&D. (Blueprint Genetics, 2017)
Kaiku Health Oy is a Finnish healthcare technology company that has developed a software
application. This platform enables to follow patients and measures the most important things
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among others about efficiency of treatments and communication between patients and
healthcare organization. The current market place spread is in Europe in 40 different
hospitals and clinics. (Kaiku Health accessed 22.9.2018)
Kaiku Health was found in 2012 and today the focus is, in addition to patient monitoring,
also on preventive healthcare. In publication 8.4.2018 announced that Kaiku Health raised
4,4 million Series A funding and international venture capital investors participated.
(Pääomasijoittajat, 2018a)
Digital patient monitoring can lead to better quality of life and at the same time save
healthcare costs. Kaiku Health had 64 000 users in Europe in March 2018. The company
has also been the driver of setting up projects at university hospitals in Finland where the
Kaiku Health platform is used to determine its effectiveness to different segments of patients.
(Pääomasijoittajat, 2018a)
The history of venture capital can be related nearly 600 years ago when queen of Spain
financed the exploration (venture) of Kristoffer Columbus to America. This is clearly one of
the first remarks of possible high risks idea financing coming from outside source, in the
case the queen. (Lauriala 2004, 21)
In the upwards and recessions of markets investing becomes a topic of discussion. Tulip
mania in the 16th century, 1920s credit bubble, 1970s oil crisis and 1990s dotcom mania are
to say only a bunch of those times. However, today’s theme has been startups and
breakthrough of small technological companies in many sectors. Even if the first Slush event
was organized almost 10 years ago, the author still believes that rising of startups is till at
its baby steps. Upwards and downwards have offered both wins and losses, some of them
lasted long and some shorter time. (Parviainen 2017, 9)
There are four drivers (Parviainen, 2017, 10-11) of why startups and investing into them
have risen: First one is digitalization. There has been significant amount of changes in
business processes nowadays. Removing the “middle man” has been a trend in for example
finance and travelling businesses. Also, digitalization has made it possible to replace
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physical products for example in advertising and saving a document. Second one is that
world is becoming smaller: Innovations are easier to copy today, which leads to more
efficient competition and development. Thirdly is the easiness of founding a business
whether the business is about accounting, marketing or administration the cost of business
is smaller than what it used to be. Final one is respecting entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurs: This has been a trend largely among young people while in the past (event
20 years ago) entrepreneurship was identified as a sign of failure. When there are successful
startups, they become influencer and hence have a positive impact about entrepreneurship
on people. Also, earlier salary was determining success, however nowadays corporate
culture and success by own are thought to be more important. (Parviainen, 2017, 10-11)
Investors are trying to predict megatrends and best investments; most investors are
following successes. As startups have become famous worldwide, investors have woken
up. First time, investors themselves and small bunch of angel investors enjoyed high profits.
At the second stage (we are there now) are been enjoyed also by many other angel
investors. In the future, author predicts to see that all people in different nations are seeing
startup-hype and make their move to act. 10 years ago, it was harder for private person to
invest into growth companies. This is true even if venture investing (equity investing into
early stage companies) came to Finland in the middle of 1990s. At that time most of the
investments came from family and friends. No systematic angel investment network was at
sight. (Parviainen, 2017, 11)
Pääomasijoittajat (2018b) defines venture capital as professional investing for equity stake
at a company. Normally, startups and growth companies are at venture capital investors’
hands. Among other than capital, VC offers the company know-how and contacts so that
the company can drive to success. VC´s most important task is to increase the value of the
company. (Pääomasijoittajat, 2018b)
In the United States of America story of VC (Gompers & Lerner 2001) started by setting up
American Research & Development in 1946 in short ARD. The goal was to invest into high-
risk projects in promising companies that had the background of developed technology
dating back to world war 2. After ARD was found, only some new VC funds were established
but VC business did still not start. (Gompers & Lerner 2001)
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In 1957 ARD invested into Digital Equipment Corporation and with under 70 000 dollars
investment it got 77% of all company shares. After that DEC became successful and ARD
realized 5000% increase in value, this became as an example of how VC can turn starting
businesses into flourishing state. (Lainema 2011, p 51) This changed at end 1970s and
beginning of 1980s when Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) system fell due
to too much control. (Gompers and Lerner, 2001)
When year 2016 ended there were 898 venture firms with 1562 funds together with 333-
billion-dollar asset management. (NVCA, 2017) So there is quite a significant growth in the
number of members in NVCA throughout its history.
Gladly 62% of all IPOs happened in Finland in 2017 had a VC firm backing them up, this
shows how important VCs are on the road of starting up the business until IPO. Between
2015-2017 over 2 billion euros were invested into Finnish startups and half of it came from
buyout funds from abroad. This shows how important VCs are on the road of companies’
way to being public limited companies. (Pääomasijoittajat, 2018e)
VC investors invest through funds that are financed by collecting money from investors that
are usually pension and insurance companies. VC funds are usually temporary and their
22
investment targets are non-public companies with good prospects for growth. These
investors are not target company’s owner forever but are determined to walk away typically
after 3-7 years after investment. (FVCA et al., 2017 and Lauriala, 2004, 35)
VC funds according to Lauriala (2004, 34) are funded 99% of investors who are limited
partners, which means that they only are responsible for their equity stake. These limited
partners typically get 75-85% of profit realized from investment plus their investment stake.
The others get 15-25% of the profits plus yearly administration bonus that is 1,5-2,5% out
of the all capital in the fund. (Lauriala, 2004)
VC firms do not have many employees according to Gompers et al. (2016) survey, since
there are on average 14 people working at the fund, and 5 of them have a title senior partner.
(Gompers et al. 2016, p 32)
NVCA (2017) Yearbook goes, however, deeper into the fund structure. Example of Limited
partners are public pensioner fuds and insurance companies. For each fund a separated
partnership is created. One investment for a target startup, leads to reserve of 3 or 4 times
the amount of first investment. Again, 3-8 years is the time of investment.
23
At time exit comes and this is mostly done by Initial Public Offering (IPO) or M&A-deal. Next
the fund can redistribute the profits from deal to investors and set up a new fund for future
ventures. When comparing IPOs and acquisitions, IPOs overcome the alternative since it is
believed to be better for the economy in three ways: more employment, higher returns and
greater capital raised. (NVCA, 2017) Grakow, J. (2018) from Ernst & Young agrees that
even though IPOs may be a harder route due to regulations and greater costs among others
but points out that when trying to maximize shareholder wealth companies like Facebook
comes into mind at raising the shareholder value in multiples. Gompers et al. (2016) report
that exits happen a bit over half in the cases through M&A, 15% via IPOs and almost one-
third are considered to be failed exits.
These funds are by structure and nature very different by nature. Venture capital funds
invest as minority investors for early development stage companies. So-called buyout funds
tend to be more active in M&A (mergers and acquisition) deals. In the latter case the target
companies tend to be already cash flow positive and stable companies. (FVCA et al, 2017)
In this research I am more interested into actual venture capital funds and not buyout fund-
related matters although one of the interviewee is more involved in the private equity side.
Figure 7 Private risk investors map of motives. Source: modified from Lainema (2011)
24
As seen from a picture of Lainema (2011, 52-53) there are differences in risk investors, they
are investors at the beginning of the business, and especially in their motives towards the
companies. FFF do not participate actively into ordinary business neither they have high
targets in earnings. Private risk investors are divide into two clearly seen groups: business
angels / life style investor and professional investors. Between these two groups although
some differences are to be seen all are very attached to the entrepreneur they have invested
into. Lifestyle investors make their financing decisions very intuitively. Because professional
investors live on their earnings their earnings targets are stricter than non-professionals’. All
private risk investors want to work in the Board of the company and often the first gathering
of the Board is done when the first risk investor comes in. (Lainema, 2011)
VCs do not invest unless they are seeing an opportunity of earning 10 times more than they
invested in. Very quickly their targets move to exiting as soon as possible, which is not
always in the interest of an entrepreneur. Despite of all this, they bring contacts and business
expertise. If they are not happy with the results how the company is doing, they might ask
for CEO change, but on the other hand with their knowledge they can represent a more
credible image of the company and can attract new employees easier than the entrepreneur.
(Lainema, 2011)
Lauriala (2004, 19-20) explains that in Finnish language and culture venture capital or
private equity do not include buyouts where the expected return is lower since the
companies (investment targets) are already positive in cash flow and have proven their
business concept. Venture capital markets target only companies just to begin their
business. (Lauriala 2004, 19-20) Therefore in this thesis we are not including buyout
markets.
Lauriala (2004, 18) sees that VC investments into high-tech companies have been
underlined since 1990s. VCs have encouraged entrepreneurs to start businesses and thus
created jobs and increase exports. During economic downturns VCs are more passive but
there are already structures through which general economic activity VC investors increase
their activity.
25
Venture capital is a form of active ownership. As spoken before these have the goal of
raising company’s value by strategy, financing arrangements and active board membership
and marketing. These funds have additionally many experts in them for example in
marketing, budgeting and management. Investment’s value is determined at the time when
fund is selling its stake away usually to an industrial company or by IPO (initial public
offering). (PwC, 2006 and FVCA et al., 2017)
Advantages of equity investments and how they differ themselves from other investments
(PwC, 2006), which are also presented in a table below.
Trustworthy and flexible finance base that reflects Practical financing way if the company has
to target company’s growth plans moderate level of debt and the company’s
cash flow is positive enough.
Good for cashflow since equity return, dividends Enough and regular cashflow is needed to
and possible interests are subject of negotiation pay interest and loan back
based on company’s payback ability.
PE investor’s income is dependent on company’s Bank’s income is depended on interest level
growth and success. and the development of value of the asset
that is as security.
If company fails PE investor are after banks, tax Banks are first to get their money back if the
authority next in the list of getting their company is liquidated.
investments “back”
If the company is in bad shape, PE investor tries If company’s ability to pay back its loans
to do everything to get it back on track. lacks, can bank set debt collection and
bankruptcy is another method.
Lauriala (2004, p 22-23) agrees with PwC (2006) and FVCA et al (2017) on activity of VC
investors in operating environment. Also, Lauriala (2004, p 22-23) raises one additional point
why venture capital investments differ from other investments. VC investment is temporary
26
and at that time the value of investments is to be expected to raise hugely. VC funds are to
be found for 10-13 years’ time: first five years goes by identifying the investment targets and
finally doing the investment decision. After this next couple of years will be spent by
monitoring the value growth and the company’ business. After that 3-7 year most of the
investments are sold or realized and the profit is shared by investors of the VC fund.
Many startups tend to fail in their attempt to establish a successful company (Knaup and
Piazza, 2007). This has been noticed in Finland where Lappalainen, E. (2018) started to
follow from 2012 startups in their path to become unicorns. In six years there has been 604
financing rounds for as many as 425 companies. The total amount of venture capital
accounts about 1 billion euros during these 6 years. One company example is MariaDB that
has raised 60 million euros during its years of existence but compared to its competitor (not
Finnish) Mongo DB raised over 300 million euros before listing. Out of the 20 biggest stakes
of raised capital, all made huge losses in 2016 due to large investments in R&D and market
entry internationally. Big investments – big responsibilities: This is how it can be
characterized when large capital investments come, revenue growth and profit margin must
go hand in hand. “Investors want to see growth; the results of early years are for them
indifferent.” This is a translated quote from Mr. Petri Järvilehto from game studio Seriously.
He says also that marketing and R&D expenses are increasing in gaming industry and for
example Rovio spent about 300 million euros on marketing whereas most gaming
companies spend 20-30 million. In case of Seriously, in 2016 company spent 80% of its
revenue to marketing. (Lappalainen, E., 2018)
Lappalainen, E. (2018) tells about Mendor that claimed itself bankrupt in 2017. Mendor was
a health technology company that invented a diabetes measuring gadget capable of running
the entire process and follow the results and development in a phone application. The story
is vital for both VCs and entrepreneurs. In short there were too many owners and variety of
shares that it got too complicated to refinance the whole company. Finnish startups tend to
raise capital with small finance rounds about every second year. When they have raised
capital, it all goes to paying the debt that has accumulated over the past few years. This
does not sound smart at all when in Silicon Valley the amounts raised are 20-30 million
euros for 5 years. Therefore, in Finland there should be better planning regarding the
financing process and how to use the funding in the startup. (Lappalainen, E. 2018, 28-31)
27
Sorvisto, P. (2016) in claims that the funding amounts (for example in R&D mentioned by
Lappalainen, E. (2018)) are just not enough in Finland. The risk-taking attitude is much lower
in Finland than competitors’ like the USA. Therefore, it is necessary to seek funding outside
from Finland. Another thing is that companies should first of all understand needs and
investment criteria. Companies should see VCs as customers and like supermarkets have
their customers whose needs need to be solved and traced. The difficult part is that VCs are
not some kind of homogenous group with similar investment criteria, investment focus area
or business model. The entrepreneur him or herself should be more active in gaining market
understanding and different trends in addition to investment criteria to communicate better
and foremost sell the opportunity to invest in a more attractive manner. Marketing and R&D
require a lot of external capital and the company should work in long-term and
systematically. As mentioned, there is not enough capital in Finnish VC market, government
could step in to provide support to get Finnish knowledge in healthcare technology and other
fields into the markets. (Sorvisto, P. 2016)
In the picture below from NVCA Yearbook (2017) we can see that Venture capital comes
along at development stage of venture capital. They connect companies in their portfolio to
customers and give strategic guidance. Target companies at the beginning of investments
need typically 5-8 years to mature. (NVCA, 2017)
Figure 8 Development stage of venture capital, source: modified from NVCA (2017)
28
At the beginning (pre-seed) the company starts from zero and there turnover and costs are
low. Of course, costs are growing faster than turnover itself and therefore company’s
cashflow is negative at the beginning. This is called Death-Valley (kuolemanlaakso in
Finnish). Company’s mission is to get more funding or cut costs to have more time to change
the cash flow into positive. Third option naturally is to focus on increasing turnover without
thinking of costs and hope that the investors give funding. (Parviainen, 2017, 21 and Etula,
2015)
At beginning (startup / survival) angel investment is usually used for product development
and R&D or working capital (Etula 2015).
At Seed stage funding rounds fluctuate from tens of thousands to coup of hundred thousand
euros. Here company normally does not have any turnover yet and the product/service is
under development, sometimes the idea is on the way. Financing is usually made by
employers themselves or contact network 3Fs (family, friends…) and angel investors.
Additionally, there are some seed capital funds. Also, Tekes and ELY as state institutions
are funding these projects again equity. (Parviainen, 2017, 21-22)
First professional rounds are called pre-A or A round. At this stage the company already has
the product, service and proof of concept. Company must have strong evidence about
competitive advantage and scalable product associated with technological innovation, and
business model. They have some revenue and proof of its growth; net income may still be
negative and the company is targeting additional investments and for that it needs funding.
After A come B, C and D round where company’s growth is already more stable and
profitability grows. The value of the company goes higher. Company’s R&D however
requires funding that its own earnings cannot finance those. The biggest number of
companies lay still at seed stage and these companies are becoming more and more
uncompetitive and therefore week cases end quickly. A moto here is: The earlier stage the
more supply for different investment targets there are for investors. (Parviainen, 2017)
Etula (2015) and Parviainen (2017) emphasizes that at later growth stage (early and later
growth state is venture capital state. Sometimes company moves from just competing at
home markets to foreign markets where revenue grows and exceeds costs. At expansion
phase company tries to expand to new markets and company’s turnover is substantial.
Although there are several types of investors at various stages, there are some common
29
factors among them. The most crucial factor is to do syndicates which means two or more
investors’ common investment and the group is represented by one person. (Etula, 2015
and Parviainen 2017, 21-24)
Syndication is very important for VCs because it is motivated by several factors. On the
other hand, small VCs have very limited funds and hence not being perhaps able to diversify.
Larger VCs, however, are motivated by the need for larger deal-flow strategy. It was found
out that location or specialization of VCs have no significant effect on motive for syndication.
(Manigart, S. et al., 2006)
Gompers et al. (2016) see that syndicates as collaboration widens the range of expertise in
the investment team and many VCs tend to make quite specific selection process for finding
the most suitable partners.
30
willingness is much smaller. Vice versa, founders are trying to negotiate maximize the pre-
money value. (Laurila 2004, 66-67)
Higher risk comes with higher return. VCs invest into highly uncertain companies and
industries so they are willing to earn a higher return on their investment i.e. ROI (Zider, B.
1998 and Parviainen 2017, 41)
High risk is compensated through high discount rate with which the cashflow to the investor
is discounted. When the target company grows, its risk for failure becomes smaller, and so
does the discount rate. (Parviainen, 2017, p 67)
Table 4 Discount rates of VCs by startup stage, Source: modified from Parviainen (2017)
Moral hazard and adverse selection are the reasons why investors make choices – whether
it is that they invest too much or too little. VCs are better at analyzing young companies than
regular investors because regular investors hardly have the expertise over VCs. This shows
particularly when exit time occurs. Because of uncertainty in early stage young companies,
VCs are more and more focused on after seed –stage companies. (Amit et al. 1998)
Liquidity is a way of turning shares into cash in a time frame. With startups because they
are not public limited companies their shares are hard to sell or make any other transactions
and therefore the liquidity is very low in these investments. These are reasons why the buyer
of the startup company shares does not need to pay the full price for the shares. (Parviainen,
2017, p 67)
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VC brings to the company a large amount of added value with connections to suppliers and
other experience from venture business. (Parviainen, 2017, p 67)
Damodaran (2009, 9) and Lauriala (2004, 67) explain that as young companies (startups
included) are not publicly traded and hence have no public traded bonds outstanding.
Therefore, it is impossible for us to use regression on past returns, get equity beta nor market
interest rate on debt. Equity in startups is normally invested by investors who have 100%
(usually founders) invested into that company or partially diversified (venture capitalists).
This means that it is probably difficult for investors to accept that the “only risk” i.e. non-
systematic risk cannot be diversified away and hence demand risk premium to cover this
specific risk. (Damodaran, 2009 and Lauriala, 2004, 67)
This means that WACC (weighted average cost of capital) does not work as a measurement
of risk for VC investors. WACC comes from adding cost of equity to cost of debt.
Nordnet (2014) explains that the return measured at VC funds is done by IRR a.k.a internal
rate of return because VC investor is not a long-time partner so therefore effective return is
used to measure the how well the fund is returning. Tesi (2018) says that in comparison to
2002-2008 and 2009-2015 venture capital funds in Finland investing into technology
startups the difference is positive as after the financial crisis VC funds have managed to
bring a return 11% based on IRR method. Positive sign is also that write-offs of investments
have decreased in time frame 2012-2017 from 40% to 20%. (Tesi, 2018)
Hege, U et al (2003) says that measured by IRR, American VC funds’ returns better than
European VC funds’ and this might be due to the reason of better adjustments of good and
bad investments.
Gottschlag et al. (2004, 8-9) sees however three points why IRR fails as a measurement of
VC fund performance:
1. IRR assumes that before reinvesting possible liquidation of investment firstly capital
distribution comes.
2. IRR can be manipulated by reporting investments’ residual values and the time when
cash flow happened.
3. Inflows and outflows of fund are seen as the same risk which is not true.
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3 What we know about start-up valuation
In the next chapter we will start digging deeper into valuation of startups and introduce a
large sample of different valuation methods. Firstly, we will cover up investment processes
of VCs and after that raise few points regarding issues of startup valuation. Finally, I am
introducing investment criteria and quantitative valuation methods.
Silva (2004) has collected different VC investment processes (picture below) other
researches have illustrated in their research. Firstly, is deal origination followed by
screening, third evaluation and finally deal structuring. Different researchers see the
investment process a bit differently than Lauriala (2004) but basically, they have the same
features. VCs begin by getting to know with the companies / investment targets and start
screening them by keeping in the most promising ones. Large differences can be seen in
the screening phases since three researches divide the screening phase usually into two
phases. After this, the evaluation begins and there are the largest differences as some
researchers have different meetings and evaluations like due diligence process included.
(Silva, 2004)
Wells Tyebjee and Hall Fried and Boocock and Bliss (1999)
(1974) Bruno (1984 (1989) Hisrich (1994) Woods (1997)
Search for Deal origination Generating a Deal origination Generating a Origination
investment deal flow deal flow
Proposal Firm-specific Initial
Screening of Screening screening screen screening Generic screen
proposals
Proposal Generic screen First meeting
screening
Evaluation of Evaluation Project First phase Second meeting First phase
proposal Evaluation evaluation evaluation
Board
presentation
Due Diligence Second phase Due Diligence Second phase
evaluation evaluation
Deal structuring Deal structuring Closing Deal structuring Closing
At the first stage according to Tyebjee & Bruno (1984) VCs face numerous companies and
they tend to choose the best candidates usually in the same fields they are experts in. By
33
using different filters, they decrease number of proposals again. (Tyebjee and Bruno, 1984)
Fried & Hisrich (1994) see that by most of the many investment proposals come by referral,
only a few comes if an entrepreneur just calls. This can be viewed like networking with
referrers. After that there are firm-specific screening and generic screening and after that
most of the investment proposals are rejected. At the firm specific screening business plan
is reviewed but not on a specific matter but most importantly (among others) firm firm’s
funding stage and size of financing need are under monitoring. (Fried and Hisrich, 1994)
Bliss, R.T (1999) discusses the investment processes and especially in those countries that
are shifting towards free economy. In this case Poland was the studied country. (Bliss 1999)
But I think personally that this theory could be adapted into today’s emerging markets like
BRIC countries, different countries in Asia and Ukraine for example. Bliss, R.T (1999)
provides an updated version of Fried & Hisrich (1994) investment process, and the main
differences are privatization of companies and misunderstanding of VC business.
In evaluation stage VCs are forced to value the companies based on subjective measures
due to lack of history of startups. Even though it is important to value risk and return, only
seldom VCs use mathematical models for example to calculate discount rate. (Tyebjee and
Bruno, 1984) Fried & Hisrich (1994) opens that in the first evaluation stage is about testing
the founders and executives their stress limit and get to know them better in person and
knowledge wise. Also, sometimes contacting suppliers and other connections of the
company to ensure the VC about the reliability towards the entrepreneur. After that is the
second stage that takes longer time because there is the question about any reasons that
can cancel the deal. (Fried and Hisrich 1994)
In their book Kallunki and Niemelä (2007, 23-32) are dividing the valuation of a company
into three main stages and they are: Strategic analysis, analysis of financial statement and
analysis of future development. Let us summarize the meanings of these three stages.
In strategic analysis the main goal is to catch factors that are affecting the success of the
company. This process is divided further into two parts: inner and outsider analysis, where
inner analysis focuses largely for example on the functionality of the business plan,
competitiveness of products and services, pricing and team. It is safe to clear that in startups
where the business idea has not yet properly been tested in the market, valuation is harder
i.e. the spread of different valuation results grows. When it comes to external analysis, it
34
reflects, on the other hand, on the non-company based factors that have effect on company
valuation like competitors and business markets. (Kallunki and Niemelä 2007, 24-30)
In financial statement analysis it is important in the context of startups and growth companies
to correct the balance sheet and income statement so that it will reflect the formation what
listed (i.e. publicly traded) companies’ financial statements would look like. This process will
then show more reliability, financial state and comparability to other companies. (Kallunki
and Niemelä 2007, 24-30)
Finally, analysis of future development contains the analysis of what the company itself has
predicted and if its forecasts are trustworthy in sense of comparing previous years financial
statements and what and how the current market trends for this specific business field
predict. (Kallunki and Niemelä 2007, 24-30)
Tyebjee and Bruno (1984) review the closing stage by stating that there are the discussion
topics following: price of the deal, the equity share and protective covenants in order the VC
to step in to board of the company among other consequences. Covenants are also useful
in restricting dilution of shares affecting to the value of VCs equity share. The exit usually
happens through IPO or M&A deals. (Tyebjee and Bruno, 1984)
Lauriala (2004, 199-214) explain that VCs have different options to do exit from investment.
They are Trade Sale, IPO and Share Buy Back and bankruptcy. 5-10 years from initial
investment exit usually occurs and during those years VCs change company structures so
that the value will hopefully increase in future. All the value-added elements should be
recognized and valued. Initial Public Offering (IPO) is claimed to raise the value of the
company higher than other exit options. There the company keeps the independency and
possibility to access different markets. Trade sale means selling the company to third party.
(Lauriala, 2004)
What is so difficult about valuing a startup? Damodaran (n.d b) describes that usually
valuation comes from three sources. Firstly, there are the financial statements telling story
about profitability, its investment intensity for future growth possibilities and other factors.
Secondly is the history of the company all its earnings and market prices in order to research
how well the company had done and most importantly its business cycle. Thirdly one can
35
look at company’s competitors. Startups, however, differ a lot from “ordinary companies”
and therefore their valuation may cause problems. (Damodaran, n.d b)
Damodaran (n.d a) explains that globally markets have seen the change of traditional
business areas from production to service. Throughout the years it has become clear that
even large companies are no longer value based on tangible assets like buildings,
machinery and land. Many companies nowadays create value and they are valued by their
intangible assets like technology (from R&D) and human capital (consultancy company
KPMG). To value intangible assets is hard but possible. (Damodaran, n.d a)
Firstly, we must ask ourselves: Why can’t we use the same methods from tangible assets
for valuing intangible ones? If we take a patent and calculate its value, it should amount to
as present of cash flows with discount rate that represent the risk. The problem is that
accounting standards for tangible and intangible are different. For example, when looking at
a car manufacturer, it invests into new factory, record this as capital expenditure in addition
to asset and depreciation recognition. On the other hand, if a technology company puts
money into R&D with a goal of creating a patent, it cannot record the expenses as capital
expenditures nor record any assets or amortization/depreciation. Similar story applies to a
company that invests a lot of money on marketing to grow its brand name. There are number
of basic inputs for valuation that are crucial and since accounting standards of intangible
assets are not accordance with the basic inputs, we cannot trust book value nor current
earnings: Current earnings is net value of R&D and book value does not consider
investments that are made for large assets. It can be difficult in terms of capital expenditures
recorded as operating expense, how much reinvestment the company is going to for its
further growth. Also, getting a loan from a bank may become difficult if the company has
many intangible assets because their value can fluctuate already a lot in a short time period.
As a last remark, it is difficult to estimate whether and when the intangible assets the
company has can become steady. Sometimes if the market entry and exit is easy but the
technology fluctuates a lot, growth rate can decrease fast. But if a company has a brand
name for example that has been a competitive advantage for many years, it becomes easier
for other firms with no physical assets (they don’t have to have tangible assets) to stay in
high growth with excess returns. When comparing two companies, analysts often make the
mistake of not assessing companies (with intangible assets) in their book value without
36
adjusting capital expenditure. Also, it is not advisable to add premiums that come from
nowhere as if it would describe the value of brand name. (Damodaran, n.d a)
With the help of investment criteria, we are aiming at better understanding of the different
valuation methods. It is important to understand what VCs look for in entrepreneurs, teams,
product and market they invest in. This research is crucially linked to the interview questions
formed.
Simic, M. (2015) tells that there are for every provider of capital different criteria how they
value the risk investment. The business plan drafted should be targeted to each type of
investor uniquely because of different criteria. For example, FFF (family, friends, fools) go
first with instinct of trusting the entrepreneur. On the other hand, debtors value the ability of
repaying the loan and for VCs and business angels market and financial information.
Entrepreneurs should be ready for VCs and what they require from entrepreneur from the
first stage onwards.
MacMillan et al. (1987) divided the investment criteria into three categories: Personality and
Experience of Founders; Product and Market Characters and Financial considerations. All
in all, we can conclude that financial criteria are least important since personality and
experience of founder and market conditions are at the highest point.
When thinking of leadership qualities of the entrepreneur Macmillan et al. (1987) felt the
most strongly that the intuition what VCs feel like is very important. For example, if the
entrepreneur does not look like a leader and the business does not show the qualities of
being able to return at least 10 times within 5-10 years, the investment does not look
interesting.
37
Simic, M. (2015) lists several other researches like Knight (1994), Sweeting (1991) and Ray
& Turnpin (1994) in different countries with own VC culture but all in all came to same kind
of conclusion like MacMillan et al. (1987). However, Simic, M (2015) points out that the
sample size of research is too small in many of the researches to really reflect how VCs
make decisions.
This is very exciting area of study but I can see that also one of the key things to research
is how the VC investment criteria have developed (if by any means) until this day.
Additionally, it would be a great addition if the criteria are clarified more deeply.
Eisele, F et al. (2011) conclude that management quality is the number one criteria, after
that comes product/service and market criteria. The last one is financial criteria. The
capability and clearness of business plan presentation is very important in addition to market
knowledge also presented by Tyebjee and Bruno (1984). These criteria are thought to be
important at every stage of startup life cycle. Customer loyalty is quite high criteria ranking
after management skills in early stage. Dividend potential and other financial measurements
were seen not relevant in addition to entering international markets. We can say that
dividend requirements are not at strong position in ranking at any financing stage. But the
stake requirement is also necessary criteria and interesting is that the criteria becomes less
important as further you go in stages. All in all, we can say that based on the table below
from Eisele, F et al. (2011) that management knowledge of the market, risk management
and goal-achievement attitude are at every stage very high. (Eisele et al., 2011)
38
Early stage Expansion Stage Late Stage
Rank Criterion Mean Standard Criterion Mean Standard Criterion Mean Standard
1 (31) High appreciation 2,97 0,17 (8) Management is 2,9 0,21 (8) Management is 2,87 0,35
potential of acquired thoroughly familiar with thoroughly familiar with
equity stake target market target market
2 (1) Business concept 2,96 0,19 (3) Management detects 2,89 0,5 (1) Business concept 2,79 0,49
presented convincingly risks, judges them correctly, presented convincingly
and acts accordingly
3 (2) Management has high 2,89 0,32 (31) High appreciation 2,87 0,34 (4) Management 2,78 0,50
ability to perform and potential of acquired equity determines problems,
persevere stake establishes goals, and
assign duties
4 (3) Management detects 2,81 0,48 (1) Business concept 2,86 0,35 (3) Management detects 2,78 0,42
risks, judges them presented convincingly risks, judges them
correctly, and acts correctly, and acts
accordingly accordingly
5 (18) Customer utility of 2,79 0,50 (4) Management determines 2,71 0,52 (31) High appreciation 2,77 0,43
the product is apparent problems, establishes goals, potential of acquired
and assign duties equity stake
30 (7) Management strives 1,32 1,18 (29) Access to international 1,33 0,76 (12) University degree of 1,45 0,83
for independence markets training coherent with
venture
31 (28) Existing distribution 1,27 0,60 (7) Management strives for 1,19 1,06 (27) Little competition in 1,40 0,72
channels independence focus market during first
three years
32 (29(Access to 1,19 0,89 (33) Desired participation in 1,04 1,12 (7) Management strives 1,08 1,06
international market additional financial cycles for independence
33 (30) Access to entirely 0,77 0,65 (30) Access to entirely new 0,67 0,62 (34) Dividend from 0,64 0,91
new market market acquired stake
34 (34) Dividend from 0,22 0,42 (34) Dividend from acquired 0,4 0,62 (30) Access to entirely 0,59 0,50
acquired stake stake new market
Table 6 Investment Criteria at every financing stage, Source: modified from Eisele et al. (2011)
39
Hollmann and Kuckertz (2010) summarized previous researches and we can concretely
divide the areas of VC investment criteria in the following way: It is now evitable that there
is a huge difference between criteria that are important to VCs. The broad scale of various
aspects of criteria are following by Kollmann and Kuckertz (2010, modified):
Table 7 Areas of VC investment criteria summarized by previous researches, Source: Kollmann and Kuckertz (2010),
modified.
Franke et al. (2008) summarizes (supporting Kollmann and Kuckertz, (2010)) greatly how
the criteria are being ranked (top 3) by previous scholars. It is evitable that entrepreneurial
skills are put more weight in valuation of startups because in all researches in the below
table show that entrepreneurial commitment, quality, experience and different skills are
thought to be most important. Market and product related characteristics are also important
but as one can spot that financial criteria do not show particular interest in VCs’ minds.
(Franke et al 2008)
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3.2.1 Detailed summary – Entrepreneur and Team criteria
When thinking of more 21st century researches in the matter, Petty, J.S and Gruber, M
(2011) recognized that a well-established team may be important because it affects
commercialization of the product or service. Management team is also replaceable and VCs
have connections with experienced managers who can replace the old managers. It is
notable that no entrepreneur and team criteria were in top 3 most important criteria. (Petty
and Gruber 2011)
Narayanasamy et al. (2011) see that VCs in Malaysia are more regular investors than VCs
that were described by Parviainen (2017) that have the desire to be on the journey with the
entrepreneur and develop the business. Personal integrity of entrepreneur and management
is the most important feature since investor want to see that the entrepreneurs are realistic
about the business and risks associated with that. Then second is that there should be
leadership quality in the management. (Narayanasamy et al., 2011)
Specific skills in marketing, finance and management are also appreciated VCs. (Tyebjee &
Bruno 1984, Muzyka et al. 1996, Bliss 1999)
Like many, Kakati (2003) saw also that team is important and here it is said that marketing,
managerial and technical skills make a substantial difference between successful and
unsuccessful venture.
Pintado et al. (2007) found that the most important criteria in VC investments were, among
entrepreneurial characters, that the owner shows trust, knowledge of the sector and
experience of employment. Others were leadership skills and understanding of the strategy.
Gompers et al. (2008) raises the point also the entrepreneur’s key knowledge in industry
and background in successful stories are determined to perform better than first-time
entrepreneurs or those who have failed many times.
41
Also, Vinig and de Haan (2002) raised that leadership skills of entrepreneur and industry
knowledge are the most important features.
Berstein et al. (2015) found that the founder and team are the most principal factors
attracting investments. VC with wider knowledge believe that the founding team is a strong
indicator and factor of strategy through which startup is going to be let. Management team
there should be replaceable so that the investors can feel safe with their rights to control.
(Berstein et al. 2015)
Gompers et al. (2016) found also out that nowadays VCs tend to emphasize the importance
of entrepreneur and the management teams over other criteria. It is declared that many VCs
believe that they invest into people not actually into product or market, hence people are the
most critical factor in terms of success. (Gompers et al. 2016)
In conclusion one can say that entrepreneur and team criteria are the most important ones
and honesty and integrity, different skills, understanding and experience. But management
team can also be changed.
When thinking of product / service characteristics Kollmann and Kuckertz (2010) are
reviewing that innovativeness and patentability are key factors.
As we talk about technology and startups it is important to discuss the matter of IPR rights
related to technology reflecting on investment criteria. Zhou et al. (2016) views that the better
IPR rights the startup has the more funding it will get. Patents also help the company to gain
new market share. When looking at the VC funding stages, those companies who applied
for many patents received more funding than those who applied to just one but only at the
first stage. This can be explained via asymmetric information and lack of company history.
Later stages reflect that VCs value marketing and technological skills more than just patents.
(Zhou et al 2016)
Mann and Sager (2007) see that IPR rights are not classified that high in financial criteria
but as strategy to protect investors from rivalry investors. In this case, only 24% of young
42
software startups got a patent at first funding round but at this business field even out of
mature companies only about 33% had a patent which brings us to few conclusions:
• Patents are not necessary for early stage companies as they become more important
at mature level.
• There was no meaningful relationship between patents and positive impact on
venture capital criteria.
Kakati (2003) view that when comparing non-successful and successful VC investments,
few criteria are critical that VCs have looked differently. Product-related R&D investments
are not as important determining success. This agrees Zhou et al. (2016) research on
decreasing importance of patents.
Although Muzyka et al. (1996) does not rank product / service characteristics particularly
high, it comes with a lot of different criteria related to uniqueness.
Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) ranks product/service characteristics in top 15 criteria of every
criteria and they list following criteria in order of importance:
Table 8 Ranking of product/service criteria, Source: modified from Carlos Nunes et al. (2014)
Vinig and de Haan (2002) found same kind of product/service criteria as Carlos Nunes et al.
2014 but first two authors add that in the US patents are more important than in the
Netherlands. However, innovation is thought to be more important criteria in the
Netherlands.
43
Franke et al. (2008) table shows that product characteristics are not as highly appreciated
as entrepreneur and management characters. Petty and Gruber (2011) may explain why: A
well-established team may be important because it affects commercialization of the product
or service. But product/service, market characteristics and even financial criteria are more
important because it is the factor through which VCs get their source of earnings. This result
may come from the fact that this study took also into account (unlike others) why VCs reject
investments instead of just accepting them. Management team is also replaceable and VCs
have connections with experienced managers who can replace the old managers. (Petty
and Gruber 2011)
This is odd that internationality has not been recognized by more researchers. At the same
time business and competition gets locally tougher, firms would like to go global for new
markets and growth and therefore, internationality could be vital and the potentiality of
business to become global is in thoughts of VCs when they invest. If the size of the market
is not large enough then one would rationally be heading overseas.
Overall, most discussed product criteria –related criteria are patents and their importance.
Also, internationality is important topic although perhaps more related to market. Petty and
Gruber (2011) saw that product and other criteria than team determine the success of
startup, which goes against general view.
Mason, C and Stark, M. (2004) see that market (in connection to growth, competition and
demand) is the most crucial decision criteria. Also, Tyebjee and Bruno (1984) recognize that
market growth is something the VCs like to see and stands as the second place in the whole
criteria. Zacharakis and Meyer (1998) brings out that entrepreneurial factors underlined by
MacMillan et al. (1987) and Tyebjee & Bruno (1984) are not that important and market
characteristics are more necessary to capture the potentiality of the business.
44
Zacharakis and Meyer (1998) sees that especially amount and power of competitors and
market size are very important criteria.
Vinig and de Haan (2002) view that in the Netherlands VCs have quite high ranking for
couple of criteria related to markets:
• Product/service could create new markets and encourage development of existing
markets
• Low competition level
• VCs know the market
• Supply chain channels are already existing
Muzyka et al. 1996 view that sensitivity of the product to market seasonality and economic
cycles are somewhat irrelevant. On the other hand, product-market relation understanding,
market growth and attractiveness and market establishment degree are seen as semi
important for VCs. (Muzyka et al. 1996)
Carlos Nunes et al. (2014), like did Vinig and de Haan, T (2002) emphasize the importance
of criteria of that the market has easy access to suppliers. Also, market growth rate is very
important. (Nunes et al 2014)
Pintado et al. (2007) saw that market criteria are strongly related to products as researchers
found that the more high-technology related product, the more market criteria are important.
Especially market growth rate is in the interest of VC investors and when they perform
commercial due diligence report, this factor is very crucial point of it. Ability to create new
markets and growth rate of potential clients are both a bit less important than market growth
rate. (Pintado et al. 2007)
In the market category research found out that it is not necessary or sensible to build up a
new market but more important factors for successful venture is that the current market is
growing and that the target company can stimulate the current market. (Kakati, 2003)
In conclusion one can say that a variety of different market-related criteria are used by VCs
such as market, growth, size, demand. Also understanding of market is important and
product-market relation is seen as important criteria.
45
3.2.4 Detailed summary – Finance
Financial criteria that is mostly used is rate of return, possibility to exit and fit to investment
criteria. (Tyebjee & Bruno, 1984, MacMillan et al. 1985, Muzyka et al. 1996, Mason and
Stark 2004)
Highly appreciated (belonging to best three criteria) financial criteria were found by
MacMillan et al. (1985) and Tyebjee & Bruno (1984). These two researches highlighted rate
of return.
From 21st century studies Mason & Stark (2004) and Narayanasamy et al. (2011) both found
that financial criteria are really important, second and third most important. Mason and Stark
(2004) highlighted rate of return, exit possibilities, cost-revenue stream and equity.
Narayanasamy et al. (2011) highlighted exit opportunity but rate of return was not that much
behind in the overall ranking.
Although not high Muzyka et al. (1996) found quite important criteria’s like ability to cash
out, expected rate of return and time to break even.
Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) highlighted expected rate of return and this criterion was third in
the overall criteria. Ease of exit was very high also. Like Muzyka et al. (1996), Carlos Nunes
et al. (2014) found that break even timing was also decisive criteria. They found that the size
of investment and for example target company’s fit to other portfolio company are interesting
criteria to be looked at.
Regarding financial measures (for example liquidity easiness of investments) are thought
not to be important themselves but for example a good return is a follow-up of a right
entrepreneur and team, favorable market, good product and strategy. This leads to the fact
that financial considerations are important but the aspects of where profit-risk relationship is
looked at is versatile like described earlier. return on investment is the only that is regarded
as significant among finance criteria. Therefore, itself there was no significance showing
based solely on financial performance criteria (Kakati, 2003).
All we can say is that rate of return and exit possibilities are the most important financial
criteria among VCs according to researches. But financial criteria do not show a high degree
of importance.
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3.2.5 Detailed summary – Other criteria and Intuition
There are numerous of other criteria including sustainability and intuition for example that
we might take a look at. We must emphasize that since no specific criteria about healthcare
technology startups has been set, in the interview phase we must reflect based on the
knowledge we have covered and be curious by asking questions what other criteria might
be important.
Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) emphasize the importance of how well the business plan has
been written. After this especially intuition of VCs become important aspect of criteria.
MacMillan et al. (1987) and Zacharakis & Meyer (1998) view that VCs should have a great
“gut feeling” or intuition with the entrepreneur. Since there is an information asymmetry
between startups and VCs gut feeling is something VCs often lean on. Intuition tells that
often VCs are not sure how to make decisions and that is why intuition is used to back up
the investment criteria mentioned. (Zacharakis and Meyer 1998)
Intuition of investor be the factor that adds to relationship between investor and investee a
stronger bond in addition to experience, social personality and motivation to coach the
entrepreneur. (Zinecker and Wolf, 2015)
Nowadays, sustainability been a big theme around big companies and there are
certifications even that can add value to the company if it has acted in the sustainable way.
Randjelovic et al. (2003) explain that green VC by investments towards companies that
create sustainability for their stakeholders by acts of development of eco-systems for
example. This is not just charity because VCs also are interested into financial return even
though these are high risk startups. There are many regulative boundaries in green VCs but
also positive drivers. (Randjelovic et al. 2003)
Moore and Manring (2009) highlight that SMEs usually collaborate with each other to strive
for sustainability and achieve competitive advantage through it. Bocken (2015) views also
that one the key drivers for sustainable actions are gaining competitive advantage. The
author wants to remind that investors should be more patient regarding their expectations
for financial return and view other criteria based on sustainable business. Syndicates of
many VCs is the solution for reducing the risk that VCs take. Collaboration with other
47
sustainable businesses related to healthcare and environment are encouraged. VCs can
bring more knowledge into sustainability topic into the company. There are not enough
sustainable VC investors and hence no culture. (Bocken 2015)
Shepherd and Zacharakis (2001) see that the relationship between entrepreneur and VC
must be based on mutual trust. One way is to signal trust and that both are in the “project”
together. Second one is related to valuation for example as both VC and entrepreneur have
different views: There important is to discuss and find a fair and suitable value and go
discuss through the information needed for that. Third one is the fit between entrepreneur
and VC and this will help in the future when both know each other, and then VC might be
able to build up a stronger team around the entrepreneur with people best suited for roles
and team. Fourth one is that there should be frequent and open discussion, not so that only
at the time of difficulties meetings are set up. (Shepherd and Zacharakis, 2001)
Notable is that Tyebjee and Bruno (1984) saw that for the sake of relationship between VC
and entrepreneur just only a bit more than 15% use location as criteria in screening phase.
Tendency, is however, that most VCs look for investment possibilities close to metropolitan
areas where lawyers, banks and other contacts are nearer. (Tyebjee and Bruno 1984)
Venture capital investment criteria are very versatile as can be seen from the background
literature, researchers have found many ways to interpret what criteria are important for VCs
when valuing startups. When shifting more to 21st century literature, still many researchers
have pointed out that quality of entrepreneur and management team are important.
However, some underline also that management team is replaceable, like Bernstein et al.
(2017) tells. Zacharakis, A.L and Meyer, G.D (2000) shows also that there is an enormous
difference between underlining and defining of criteria when they have collected previous
researches.
Lahti, T (2011) revealed that one study from 1998 revealed that intuition was the largest
investment criteria in Finland and no other specific criteria was found. Now, however, foreign
VCs’ appearance in Finnish markets since EU membership 1995 has increased. In business
angel activity foreign practices have been adopted by Finnish VCs. Human capital i.e.
entrepreneur characteristics and business plans are searched most deeply. Thereafter
48
come sales and product information. Lahti, T (2011). Syndication and risk management also
through share ownership has become more professional for example in conducting due
diligence reports for investments. (Lahti, 2011)
Valuation of startups becomes difficult because of the short history and difficulties therefore
to forecast cash flows. This is not easy when talking about large public companies but still
business that has had solid business cycle is easier to valuate. Some people think that
startup valuation models are just parts of guessing-game and base their valuation on
intuition. Financial and intuitive methods both have places in valuation but especially
intuition is more subjective since it is based on the history, experience and knowledge of an
investor. Financial valuation, however, makes the valuation process clearer and leads to
some sort of a price that the investor is ready to pay. Different investor criteria are essential
to form a value. If the price seems out of this world, set criteria are to be viewed. (Parviainen
2017, 124)
Gompers and Lerner (2000) reminds that it is widely true that startups are valued lower than
companies with sustainable history of profits. This is because the uncertainty in investing
into startups is so large. Age and size are positively affected to the company value.
(Gompers and Lerner, 2000)
Hand, J. (2005, 613-648) examined biotechnology companies and found that venture capital
backed companies should be measured with financial statements but also claims that the
usage of financial information increases when company matures. Vice versa non-financial
measures decrease as the firm grows. However, it is important to notice that regarding the
connections. (Hand, 2005)
Damodaran (2001, 13-16) views that it is easy to view why again there is a problem in startup
and technology investments. In addition to no history and growth problems, these
companies’ cash flows are difficult to estimate at early stage – this is reflected at startups or
idea stage. In young growth stage revenues and sales are increasing when customers are
activating towards the company. Still the history of the company is very much narrow and
so is the number of comparable firms and they are usually at the same stage. Value is still
mostly related to growth. In mature growth notifiable is that value becomes deriving more
49
and more from company assets as well as growth and there are comparable at various
stages. Additionally, maturity brings more revenue and history to the company, which is
important for valuation. The trend is that the more mature the company goes the more
information one can get do reflect it better to company valuation. (Damodaran 2001, 13-16)
This can help to understand different valuation methods (presented next) and what are their
pros and cons in valuing startups you will realize in the next chapters. Most of the valuation
method need parameters like cash flow and asset valuation that are very difficult to assess
for startups. This helps us to understand why VCs tend to use investment criteria in sense
of shortage of information but as said also financial valuation has its place since you want
as an investor still “fact” based information. Therefore, we are going to be explore and
hopefully this will set up a clearer picture on quantitative valuation of startups. Also, it is wise
to view research what kind of valuation methods VCs tend to use all over the world and why.
The methods for this thesis have been selected by viewing of the literature and most ideas
for selecting the methods were given by Parviainen (2017). As suggested earlier, the
methods introduced in following sub chapters are mostly so-called traditional valuation
methods but also Berkus and Risk factor methods are introduced to get more versatile
picture how start-ups can be valued. At the end there are also methods for particularly
50
valuing intangible assets as startups are mostly technology-based and the real value can lie
in the intangible assets.
DCF model is one of the most used model in valuing both public companies and startups.
To be fair this valuation model is more applicable to later stage companies who already have
cash flow and therefore some witness that it can carry the risks what expected rate of return
requires. The idea is that value of the company is based on present value of future cash
flows’ sum. This means that the factors are: cash flow size, time and expected return
(discount rate). Discount rate is derived from WACC that we explained in the risk and return
chapter previously, capital return. Typically, cash flows are calculated for the next 4-7 years,
and the risk of cash flows is already considered at the discount rate. Present value of cash
flows in the long future is very small and hard to predict but they are calculated in the
company’s terminal value that is added to sum of cash flows. When thinking of WACC
factors, startups usually do not have any debt due to banks’ restrictions but there are usually
non-market-based loans that are usually backed by main shareholders or government. Cost
of equity, on the other hand, is mainly 50-80% so therefore the discount rate is very high.
(Parviainen, 2017, 125-128)
Parviainen (2017, 128-129) explain that the discount rate is impacted by the stage of the
company, riskiness of the field and business itself. It is noticeable that usually in startups
the growth rate of cash flows is higher than in traditional companies. One cannot just
estimate the cash flows by trusting the company’s predictions.
Where CF stands for Cash flow and r stands for discount rate derived from calculating
weighted average capital cost.
The other way is by Vernimmen, P (2014, 559-560) – that is free cash flow method (below)
and author points out that this method measures the ability of the company to produce cash.
51
- Change in Working Capital
- Capital expenditure (CAPEX)
= Free cash flow after tax
Vernimmen, P (2014, 560-562) says that a good projection for company is 10 years.
Terminal value means the value at the end of forecast period, some say after maturity stage.
Gordon-Shapiro formula is calculated in the following: Vernimmen, P (2014, 560-562):
Where r is the WACC derived cost of capital and g is the growth rate. Growth rate cannot
be very much greater than the growth in market, inflation is taken also into account.
(Vernimmen 2014, 562)
Damodaran, A (2009) sees the reasons why DCF model is not an attractive option to value
a startup. Firstly, it would assume that we would have all the knowledge about the firm’s
cash flows. Because of short history and limitations of access to details of the company’s
growth rates, revenues or operating margins. (Damodaran, A 2009)
Startups are not publicly traded. Also, because it usually assumed that investors are
founders who have invested their entire fortune there and VCs who have only little diversified
invested into the startup company. They are hardly going believe that systematic risk is the
only risk they are going to ask compensation for their investment. Different equity claims of
investors can be additionally seen as variety of cost of equity. Therefore, measuring cost of
equity or cost of debt to calculate WACC is hard. (Damodaran, A 2009)
Terminal value can be the largest component of a young company, almost 90-100%.
Terminal value takes the presumption of stable growth and this leads to problems: There is
a high failure rate of startups so one can assume that stable growth is never going to be
achieved. Probability of a survival of a firm is not easy to measure and put as a component
in determine terminal value. (Damodaran, A 2009)
Parviainen (2017, 128-129) says that DCF model does not provide enough flexibility to
capture the amount of cash flows which are fluctuated in case of startups, which supports
Damodaran, A (2009)’s claim of asymmetry lying between investor and company.
52
Van Schootenbrugge & Wong (2013) tell their side of the story of DCF model. High-tech
companies take time to turn the project positive due to uncertainty and if projects would be
measured only based on cashflows it would be impossible to participate in those because
they would be negative. Additionally, the risk factors change throughout the stages of
startup. Usually when the technology is approved the positive cash flow comes cost of
capital lowers. This becomes an issue when investor tries to settle a discount rate that would
work at any stage of a startup. Final disadvantage of DCF is that it undervalues technology
options and spin-offs to lower the risk during the projects. This leads to the problem that it
will not be seen at the value because the lower risk does not appear in the model. There is
a flexibility issue.
Sander, P and Köomägi, M (2007) show that in Estonia different surveys have provided very
different results regarding valuation methods Estonian VCs use: From using no methods at
all to payback rate and DCF method. DCF is used more than multiples because of
comparable transactions or lack of them more specifically. In larger and sophisticated
markets like US and UK multiples can be better utilized. About a quarter of American VCs
use real options but this is definitely not the same case when it comes to CEE region. Real
option method is used seldom in CEE region merely in later stage investments.
Sander, P and Köomägi, M (2007) see that DCF method is problematic when determining
terminal value. Growth rate used is highly dependent on human capital, without that, VCs
just give money. VCs want to see that the money they have invested is used appropriately.
DCF method also does not do particularly well in cash flow projections. Some VCs in the
survey rearranged the cash flow projections together with the entrepreneur, usually 5 years
from now. Longer is not necessary because of high degree of uncertainty. Sander, P and
Köomägi, M (2007) criticizes further DCF method that its effective use requires for a
particularly well estimation of cost of capital. CAPM strongly associated with DCF is not used
as usually startups usually do not have market traded debt. Cost of capital in calculated
there through intuition. (Sander, P and Köomägi, M 2007)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 567) concludes that the advantages of DCF include simplicity of the
method and that it quantifies buyers’ and sellers’ assumptions. It also provides in
comparison to multiples more conservative valuation. Additionally, it does not let you
53
assume too high growth (should not be too much beyond market growth rate) rate or too
high valuation in general but leads you to value of “company’s real economic performance”.
(Vernimmen 2014, 567)
Disadvantages are in conclusion, however, many with DCF method: There is shortage of
cash flow, history and growth rates and other financial related issues. Measuring cost of
equity and debt and therefore WACC as discount rates are difficult to obtain. Growth rate
and therefore calculating terminal value is difficult because of instability of startups and
human capital dependency. (Parviainen 2017, 128-129; Damodaran, A 2009; Sander, P and
Köomägi, M 2007; Schootenbrugge & Wong 2013)
Van Schootenbrugge & Wong (2013) tells additionally that DCF undervalues technology
options and spin-offs to lower the risk during the projects and adjust the NPV of the projects
and therefore there is flexibility issue.
3.3.2 Multiples method
Parviainen (2017 130-131) continues that this approach can be viewed as something to
compare with peer companies. Multiples are financial ratios that are derived from peer
companies’ financial statements. It’s based on company’s historical data and financial ratios
derive from it. Multiples are adjusted to company’s value and after that compare these
numbers with peer companies. (Parviainen 2017)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 566-567) divides multiples into two groups: market multiples and
transaction multiples. These multiples are derived from making comparison with market
value and accounting figures, this process needs to be continuous: Enterprise value could
be reflected to revenue or EBITDA for example. Equity capital could be best reflected to
number after debt expenses like for example net profit. (Vernimmen 2014, 566-567)
As talking about market multiples critical thing is that it is not enough that the companies are
working in similar sectors but as important is to compare their operations that are supposed
to be similar. Return on capital employed (ROCE) and growth rates are examples of these
figures. Additionally, it is implied that multiples are short-term viewed and therefore it is
crucial that companies are fairly liquid i.e. traded regularly and there are enough analysts
following these companies. (Vernimmen 2014, 567)
54
Parviainen (2017, 132) highlights that in case of startup companies the main principle of
multiples method is the same but in comparison to listed companies’ valuations (based on
“hard” figures), startups do not usually have these figures but the multiples method is rather
based on soft figures. These soft figures tell a lot about companies’ potentiality and
opportunities which are more critical figures when thinking about startups.
Parviainen (2017, 132) continues that the comparison of multiples helps also to estimate
whether the valuation of the company is right in the first place. If according to the parameters
the company is too expensive or cheap there should be a reason. For example, if the
company has exceptionally competitive technology or a team behind it. If reason is
undefinable then the price is wrong. Startup companies’ multiples analysis requires, likewise
explained by Vernimmen, P (2014, 567) in case of listed companies, that the companies in
comparison must be working in the same field, concept and also at the same stage of
growth. This is not always easy since startups are based on unique innovation or business
model that should bring added value to the company. Another challenge is connected to
finding market values and if they are “right”: Even though a comparative company would be
found, investor may not have access to find its market value. If market value is found for this
comparative company it can be the case that at the financing round this company was over
or under valued. (Parviainen 2017, 132)
Below is presented a multiple analysis for (Parviainen 2017, 133) two startups that are both
in the same fintech sector:
55
Damodaran (2009, 55-56) highlights that when valuing startup multiples could be made for
private companies. These figures are taken from the past typically same size and industry
when transactions have occurred. We could create a dataset for these transaction values
and after that it is important to reflect the transaction values with multiple variables like
revenue and earnings. Through this we compute a multiple designed for our business case.
In the past shortage of data was a problem but nowadays other problems are more relevant.
(Damodaran 2009, 55-56):
• Arms-length transaction
• Timing differences
• Scaling variable
• Non-standardized equity
• Non-US-firms
First is arms-length transaction where in the acquisition price of private company is also
included other factors not just the business itself. For example, if a doctor sells a practice
there might be included that the doctor advices the acquiring company in the future to light
the overall transition. Secondly there is timing differences: There is not enough transactions
and sometimes it takes time to get enough samples. Thirdly there is scaling variable: Usually
measures needed for multiple analysis require revenue and earnings. Since startups usually
lack these figures mostly, they should not be used because they do not tell enough about
the potential of startup. Also, variety of accounting standards across globe and this creates
potential conflicts with comparing. Fourthly there is non-standardized equity: Equity claims
are different in startups in case of cash flow, control claims and illiquidity. Therefore, it is
difficult to compare and transact different companies’ equity stakes. Fifth there is the issue
of non-US-firms: The widest data available about transaction prices of private companies is
in the USA. This data is questioned if it is applicable also to other markets. (Damodaran
2009, 55-56)
This method is based on the idea that you search every item of asset and liability and
discover their true net asset value. When these true asset values have been calculated they
are added together or asset minus liabilities. In listed and large companies this method is
56
based on the idea that the company is chopped down into smaller pieces and the business
will be sold piece by piece. (Vernimmen 2014, 574 and Parviainen, 2017, 133-134)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 574) sees that book values of assets and liabilities are seldom
reflecting their true value.
From time to time listed company’s market value could be way lower than the book value
and therefore they might have a threat of takeover. This happens when an acquirer thinks
that some of the intangible assets can be sold at higher value. Other parts may be founders’
competence levels and the values of contracts with clients. (Parviainen, 2017,133-134)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 576) tells about three methods to calculate value of an intangible asset
like brand.
One method is more empirical method based on the thought asking how much expenses
does it take to recreate the brand. Some use for example, four-year advertising costs as a
value for a brand. (Vernimmen 2014)
The second method calculates the present value of income or royalty payments that are
transferred due to use of brand. (Vernimmen 2014)
The third method is the trickiest. One can assume that without the brand the company could
not make that much sales. So, there is the need of discounting the “excess profit” due to
brand name after the costs connected to branding are taken away. This is certainly difficult
as there is usually no comparable product to compare the method to. (Vernimmen 2014)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 577) sums up the method by stating that if a company has high net
asset value this would imply that firm’s terminal value relatively compared to cash flows
coming right away is very high. This leads to the fact that more net asset value means less
cash flow, its value becomes more volatile. Because of this, sum-of-the-parts method
should be applied for companies that have already the value set for their assets in secondary
market. (Vernimmen et al 2014, 577)
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Parviainen (2017, 134) disagrees and hence says that startups with intellectual property can
be valued through this method. He tells as example intangible assets and also management
team in the company among others. Below is description for each example.
Intangible assets are hard to value and these patents might be connected to a specific
technology or part of a new business sector. Patent does not mean automatic protection for
the innovative technology because startups’ patents are continuously under attack. Since
startups usually do not have the resources to fight against, one way is to keep the new
technology as long as you can away from your competitors. Technology is a large part of
startup’s value and if it is not protected by any means it has a downgrading effect on startup’s
value. ‘Parviainen (2017, 134)
A good board of directors, knowledgeable investors and good team among others can bring
value to a startup. In valuation this part is hard because it all starts from how much added
value the person can bring into the company, usually this is 1,5-3,0 times higher than
“normal employee”. It is essential that in valuation it is considered firstly the added value to
the company and the cost (usually salary) to the company. (Parviainen 2017, 134)
Proof of concept is used a lot in startup valuation since because there is not enough sales
or turnover, the company must provide a proof of the concept working and there are
customers wanting to pay for it. Here, important is to be critical on the information that you
receive about the pilot of the product launch, reliability of information and its independency.
Being honest is important as startups also have failed projects that the investor wants to be
aware of. (Parviainen 2017, 134)
Contracts with clients and their value are evaluated also and especially if the client is
international and the value of contract is high this will have a positive effect on company’s
value. (Parviainen 2017, 134)
David Berkus, an angel investor found this method in 1990s with the goal of connecting
startups development stages and potential in different parts of the business. This model is
very useful for startups that have very little revenue. According to method, the company will
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get maximum 2,5 million euros market value. Regarding the maximum value there may be
differences between countries. (Parviainen, 2017, 140-141 and Lainema, 2011, 103)
Parviainen (2017, 141) states that Berkus model can be thought as of measurement of how
big chances do the companies have to get over the Death-valley and reach the next growth
stages. The model (Alford, 2017) can be described by a table below. Alford, H. (2017) states
that add-pre-money-value should be updated for today’s standards since maximum sums
are not relevant anymore.
This is a simple model and therefore more applicable to value seed or early growth
companies. On the other hand, the section has provided also wide section of more financial-
based valuation methods, for example DCF method can be more applicable for more mature
companies. (Parviainen 2017, 141)
Risk factor model’s initial idea is to assess target company’s risks. If the risk is negative, it
will affect negatively to company value. If the risk is almost zero, it will give to the company
positive value. Again, this is best applicable to seed and early growth startups. All risks are
divided into 12 classes and you can classify each risk with following multiples: -1, 0, +1 and
+2. Each risk can get maximum 250 000-euro value, so each factor can bring in the worst-
case scenario – 250 000-euros and as its bet +500 000 euros. (Parvianen 2017, 139;
Kowlessar, A., 2016)
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Risk factors are:
1. Management
2. Growth stage
3. Technology
4. Competition
5. Easiness of getting finances
6. Production
7. Sales and Marketing
8. Internationality
9. Regulations and political risks
10. Legal cases
11. Reputation risk
12. Company’s exit process
Parvianen (2017, 139-140) thinks that this model has the advantage again that it is quite
simple and focuses on company’s “most important” items. However, this model can only
give very blurry value of a company and if the startup has strengths or weaknesses that are
particularly different from its peers, this method won’t work very well. Parvianen (2017)
Since traditional valuation methods are hard to apply to value startups, this method is
focusing on the terminal/exit value of the investment. This time is usually in 3-7 years after
initial investment. (Parviainen 2017, 138)
Lauriala (2004, 68-69) illustrates that the venture capital method has a lot of common factors
with IRR and NPV. Most commonly as a basis for discussions between venture capital
investors and founders are used NPV-based methods. These methods have the greatest
benefit of discussing financing and exit strategies.
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Within Venture capital approach these errors come at hand with this method. Next, we will
illustrate the steps and method by Damodaran (2009, 14-16, modified):
Table 11 Venture capital method, Source: modified from Damodaran (2009, 14-16)
Lauriala (2004, 72-77) also shows that after the basic valuation process it would be
interesting to the investor to apply a sensitivity analysis where the target company’s value
changes when the factors of valuation method are changed. For example, changing the
terminal value, time to exit time and discount rate.
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Damodaran (2009, 13-14) concludes this method with its Problems and valuation errors:
- There is too much focus on top line (turnover) and bottom line (earnings) without
seeing what is happening between those factors that firstly separate earnings from
revenues and cash flows.
- Focus on short-term forecasts.
- Analysts use often relative valuation by for example dividing exit multiple to company
earnings or turnover. However, the multiple used is often derived from listed
companies.
- Discount rate is often used additionally to primary concerns like political and other
macroeconomic risks as a measurement of probability if the young company fails or
not.
- There are different equity claims and hence liquidity degree for young companies.
Schumann, C.P (2006, 2-4) introduces the First Chicago method as a model where it usually
takes 3-5 years of time-spread and calculates the future value of Net Income at the year
they occur for each scenario. (Schumann, 2006)
As second task one must calculate the terminal value using peer company and industry
multiples. After these present values are calculated by dividing future values by the discount
rate i.e. risk for the investment. VCs like to apply IRR because there is such a high risk of
not being completely diversified with your investments and that is why WACC is not usable.
(Venionaire Capital, 2015)
For this method, three scenarios are open to discuss: Success, Survival and Failure.
Success is something derived from business plan, Survival has less growth (can be thought
as a projection of an analyst after due diligence process) and Failure means that the
company either stays is its position or in worst case scenario goes bankrupt. The whole
method can be seen as betterment of DCF method: Net Income Value is finally calculated
through calculating the PV of each scenario and multiply it by the weight of probability for
each scenario. (Venionaire Capital, 2015 and Schumann, 2006)
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An example illustration of First Chicago Method from Venionaire Capital (2015) is below:
Van Putten, A.B & MacMillan (2004) suggest that why real options are more needed is the
fact that they make it possible to utilize the risks and hence opportunities. DCF method
certainly underestimate the growth opportunities that real options, on the other hand,
embraces: Risks are captured but not the opportunities and therefore the discount rate is
too high in DCF method. (Van Putten & MacMillan, 2004). Collan, M. (2018b) adds also that
DCF method comes short to explain volatility in investments that increases the option value.
Schumann, C.P (2006) and Collan, M. (2011) see that DCF method has its potentials in
easiness but of course its limitations like its disability to value intangible assets because
they are more future-determined rather than having easily predicted cash flows. Option
prices with methods of Black-Scholes or Binomial trees are more appropriate. These
methods capture whether the project or investment have the option to be delayed, expanded
or abandoned, DCF method does not offer these kinds of flexibility options. (Schumann,
2006; Collan, 2011)
Collan, M. (2018a) describes real options as different types of managerial flexibility among
others in investment world. Real options are indeed a possibility but not an obligation to
change. In sense if another project with real option has the flexibility to either hedge against
negative events and utilize for positive ones, we can conclude that real options are more
valuable than ordinary project without option. In summary real options are valuable when:
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• We understand that they exist
• We are capable of identifying them in our current investments and new
• We actively manage real options
• We follow the value of real options and try to create more value for them with our
own actions.
Collan, M. (2018a) views different option types. Those that are exercised usually during the
time they are valid or mature and these are called American Options. European Options are
only allowed to exercise at the end of maturity. This means that as real options are valuable
and we do not have the secondary market for them, investor must think ahead how they will
use the option and is it necessary.
Author defines that financial options and real options must be separated:
Collan, M. (2011) demonstrates that the logic behind option valuation is to:
Why do we have to map negative values to zero? This is because in options the option
holder has the right, however no obligation, to exercise it. Interestingly Venture capital
comes into real options in the following way. Collan (2018a) suggests that VCs use the same
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strategy as many companies do with R&D investments. This way is called stage investment.
At each stage or rounds of investing VC wonders whether to continue or abandon the
investment. VCs criteria to invest are both financial and operational and they look for
successful technology, good team and sales figures. Through this way the probability to
succeed is better. (Collan, M. 2018a)
Van Putten, A.B & MacMillan (2004) see two problems with real option valuation that
suggest that real options should not be applied on their own. When we think of early stage
investing, the value calculated with DCF is low, and with real options high. Most of the growth
companies have the problem (in the eyes of investors) that they have such a vast area of
uncertainty and therefore managers are forced to make complex decisions. Firstly, financial
options are relying on historical measures of volatility but for real options there are no
historical measures. Secondly, the more uncertainty about profits the more valuable the
project is, so says option valuation logic nowadays. Uncertainty of profits come from two
factors: Revenues and costs that are both fluctuating. This can lead to a problem that if VC
for example values: a. higher a project that occurs predictable revenues but costs are not
predictable and b. lower a project with same predictable revenues and predictable costs.
They agree that the uncertainty of project should go down toe to higher uncertainty of costs
related to investment. (Van Putten & MacMillan 2004)
Since we have estimated by Damodaran (2001, 10) and Goldman (2008) that most of the
startups are filled with technology and intangible assets it would be appropriate to introduce
methods for valuing especially intangible assets. Kohtari et al. (2013) see that intangible
assets are assets that are invisible in physical form. Usually intangible assets are patents,
trademarks, good will etc. They have, however, economic value. Intangible assets are
divided into two main groups: Legal and Competitive. Legal intangible rights are part of the
intellectual property and hence matter of jurisdiction. Competitive intangibles, on the other
hand, differ so that they are do not belong to the company in sense of jurisdiction but enable
the company to have competitive advantage in terms of effectiveness and impact on
customer orientation and market value among others. 40 years is the maximum life of
intangible asset. The cost of intangible asset is connected to expense during the life of asset.
IAS 38 is a standard reviewing the accounting ways of intangible assets. (Kohtari et al.,
2013)
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There has to be certain criteria under which one can tell that the asset belongs to intangible
assets (Deloitte, 2014):
• Identifiability
• Control (power to obtain benefits from the assets)
• Future economic benefits (such as revenues or reduced future costs)
Goldman (2008) states that strategic investors acquire technology-based startups. These
strategic investors are concentrated on buying the right technology companies and therefore
are very interested into valuation of intangible assets. Income, cost and market approach
are the methods to value intangible assets. Which factors impact on the value of intangible
assets:
Several authors are willing to open about different valuation methodologies of technology.
In cost valuation method the idea is to calculate the historic cost of recreation of the asset.
(Kohtari et al. 2013)
Goldman (2008) believes that the cost method does not very well apply to startups because
in case the company pumps a lot of cash into R&D costs but then it will either be successful
or not. In the latter case the value is zero. Cost approach does not consider the growth which
is the most important feature of a technology startup. (Goldman, 2008)
Kohtari et al. (2013) stresses that transaction method is ideal when assets like buildings are
compared but then again there is also the difficulties that very rarely you find the exact match
or comparison. Intangible assets are, however, even more difficult since finding the
comparable will result empty hands. The problem is not particularly shortage of
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comparability but the actual secret-keeping that the values of intangible assets in M&A deals
are never revealed because they are very sensible. This limits the method hugely.
Goldman (2008) does not fully see that the market-based method is useless since in case
revenues do not exist one can use royalty rates for same kind of technology in the market.
But then again, he admits that there is the lack of information and comparability examples.
Income valuation method considers the earnings that it would gain in the future and discount
them to get the asset’s net present value NPV. (Kohtari et al. 2013)
Goldman (2008) adds that with income-base model when analyzing growth companies also
market and other macroeconomic data is under watch because they can have a massive
impact on uncertainty of earnings. Customer research, how well the customers feel about
the product or service, competitiveness in the market, resources, cyclicality of the business
and many other factors. Regarding startups more specifically, author says that his way is to
separate from the discount rate the rate of failure. Therefore, his formula for doing income-
based method is:
Intangible businesses usually use income valuation (more specifically relief-from royalty
methodology) because it reflects the economic reality in the best way and can be
benchmarked. This leads to the fact that it shows the objectivity of valuating intangible
assets the best way. (Kohtari et al., 2013)
Grajkowska, A (2011) agrees with Kohtari et al. (2013) that the income method reflects best
intangible assets’ effects on company value.
Lauriala (2004, 191-192) sees that Venture capital investors usually look at the intangible
assets and rights at the due diligence stage. In practice when talking about technology-
based startups, their values are dependent on the intangible assets value that the founders
and investors have brought. For this reason, it is evitable that the earnings potential of
startups is discovered after the due diligence procedure. Protection of an intangible asset
gives more value to the asset and of course whether it is useful for the future plans of the
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company. Also, VC investors are concerned about different costs related to intangible assets
and their protection. (Lauriala, 2004)
Van de Schootbrugge and Wong (2013) summarizes most of the methods like DCF,
multiples, cost approach, real options and venture capital method suffer from weaknesses
like determining the right discount rate and none of the methods give alone a value that is
spot on. Multiples and cost approaches do not reflect the intrinsic value of the company but
multiple for example concentrates on actual market prices. (Van de Schootbrugge and Wong
2013)
Vernimmen, P (2014, 567) concludes that the advantages of DCF include simplicity of the
method and that it quantifies buyers’ and sellers’ assumptions. It also provides in
comparison to multiples more conservative valuation. Additionally, it does not let you
assume too high growth (should not be too much beyond market growth rate) rate or too
high valuation in general but leads you to value of “company’s real economic performance”.
(Vernimmen et al 2014, 567)
Disadvantages are in conclusion, however, many with DCF method: There is shortage of
cash flow, history and growth rates and other financial related issues. Measuring cost of
equity and debt and therefore WACC as discount rate is difficult to obtain. Growth rate and
therefore calculating terminal value is difficult because of instability of startups and human
capital dependency. (Parviainen 2017, 128-129; Damodaran, A 2009; Sander, P and
Köomägi, M 2007; Schootenbrugge & Wong 2013)
Van Schootenbrugge & Wong (2013) tells additionally that DCF undervalues technology
options and spin-offs to lower the risk during the projects and adjust the NPV of the projects
and therefore there is flexibility issue.
Regarding multiples finding comparable is not the issue anymore and Damodaran (2009,
55-56) sees that nowadays other problems are more relevant. (Damodaran 2009, 55-56):
• Arms-length transaction
• Timing differences
• Scaling variable
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• Non-standardized equity
• Non-US-firms
As we are speaking of such considerable number of methods it can be included that none
of the single methods overcome other fully. Therefore, it would be critical to understand
further with interviews how the professional investors make decisions based on different
valuation methods especially in healthcare analytics business. It is vital to use as many
valuation methods as possible because traditional methods and more qualitative-related
Berkus and Risk factor methods hardly capture the difficulties risen from startup valuation.
Berkus and Risk factor methods can be viewed as more suitable to value very early stage
companies and they are very simple as there is little numerical to analyze and therefore
require more intuition than quantitative analyzing. On the other hand, the rest of the methods
like DCF can be better applied to companies who have passed already development and
growth phases. (Parviainen 2017, 141)
Pintado et al. (2007) found that DCF method in valuation was used most of all companies,
after that P/E ratio and ja peer prices in the same industry. All methods except book value
and replacement value were used more in later stage investments. (Pintado et al. 2007)
Dittmann et al. (2004) claims based on their research that if VC investors use multiples or
real options, they are also using DCF valuation in higher probability. DCF method users are
also using other methods like real options, multiples and IRR to get broader view on the
valuation of the company. (Dittmann et al., 2004)
Block (2007) surveyed American companies about the usage of real options as an
alternative method for budgeting. This survey proved that the utilization of real options in
corporate use is still significantly low. Only 14,3% answered that they use real options, out
of which 45% use real option tools. (Block, 2007)
In Scandinavia use of real options is even less than in the USA according to Horn et al.
(2015). DCF is most widely used counting almost three quarters of CFOs in Scandinavia.
Real options (6% of answers) are wider used by companies that are active in energy and
biotechnology fields, traditionally fields that have high capital and R&D costs. The difficulty
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of real options implementation is thought to be the reason behind of small utilization of real
option techniques. (Horn et al., 2015)
Sander and Köomägi (2007) support world-wide view (Horn et al., 2015 and Block, 2007)
that Real option method is used more seldom in CEE region because of its application
difficulties, in comparison to USA, only merely in later stage investments. (Sander and
Köomägi, 2007)
In Finland, Lahti, T (2011) found out that quantitative methods for valuation are widely (87%)
used by Finnish Business angels. There is a reason for it, what is the worth and size of share
of the target company and approximate earnings projection and therefore 34% used price-
to-earnings ratio and other estimation methods for future earnings got 62%, the most. DCF
method was the second most used. Payback period reflecting the cash flows ability to pay
back the investment back took almost half of the participants. Multiples related to book value
like cost/book value and replacement asset value estimate come to last places, cost book
value being slightly more popular. (Lahti, 2011)
When we see VC valuation methods, VCs are not using traditional NPV or DCF methods.
VCs are using mostly multiples and IRR. When comparing to CFOs of companies, VCs
hardly ever try to forecast cash flows. (Gompers et al., 2016)
In conclusion about the usage of different methods it is clear that real options is seldom used
in valuing young startups. DCF and multiples were mentioned mostly, which indicates that
traditional methods are used still a lot in VC and valuation world. In Finland Lahti, T (2011)
showed that different methods for forecasting future cash flows are mostly used and
multiples are used a bit less but no other methods were used by business angels.
4 Literature review
In the literature review, with a determination, I am going to concentrate more on the topic of
healthcare technology and venture capital in this segment. First, I am writing about venture
capital in general in the healthcare analytics sector in the world and what are its trends.
Thereafter I am writing deeper about the valuation related items in healthcare technology.
As this is a new business field this part is very short due to lack of research done especially
on valuation related topics of healthcare analytics.
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4.1 Venture capital in context of healthcare analytics startups
Parviainen (2017, 215-216) opens up about healthcare analytics sector as that genetics is
the hardest thing to understand. It is like financing a scientific research project and this is
not a sensible investment target at all.
In New York City Healthcare VC report (2018) it was announced that in New York area
solidly 79 companies gained over 700 million US dollars funding in 2017. Mentionable is that
top 10 of the best healthcare technology companies received 25% of the funding. In New
York there are 300 VCs investing to healthcare. In the whole world in 2017 over 13,8 billion
dollars were invested through 412 deals. Since 2010, 2017 year has been highest in capital
invested and deal size wise. See picture below.
Figure 11 Investor Deals and Capital Investments, Source: modified from New York City Healthcare VC report (2018)
Champenois et al. (2006) did empirical research on biotechnology startups and how they
were funded between 1995-1999. These firms belong to high-risk class and operate in R&D
fields in biotechnology. Early stage financing was received by 42% of high-risk companies.
But much less funding was received early-stage companies with lower risk. This, however,
does not mean that VCs are redundant in this field since in Germany only 2% of the
companies in high-technology industries have VCs as investors. Corporate partners are
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rarely investing into high-risk startups. In low-risk markets CVC is very often the case and
reduce the finance gap for startups. (Champenois et al., 2006)
Potter & Wesslund (2016) says that CVCs were funding 13% of 7,5-billion-dollar worth
venture capital deals in 2015. Direct investments have the highest earning potential but risks
are highest also and therefore the focus of direct investments are more into early and mid-
sized companies with readiness for strategic partnership. Healthcare was one fifth of the
entire VC investment market. There are three types of CVCs in healthcare (Potter and
Wesslund, 2016):
• Many organizations in healthcare sector have formed separate units led by experts
in order to spot healthcare startups that can be integrated into the main organizations.
In this case financial success becomes first, latter is strategic. The investments are
to help the founders to cope within the tough competition and scale themselves.
• Also, there are organizations who use their internal innovation to create possible
startups.
• Additionally, there are CVCs that have more strategic view on investments. Of
course, financial return is important but more important is to find the next big thing for
a break through. These CVCs work closely with parent companies and gain
resources and knowhow as they need.
Potter & Wesslund (2016) listed CVCs’ motivation for CVC activities are following:
• Competitive advantage in matter of innovative technologies and further access to it
• Chance to go enter new markets through innovations
• Decrease risk level with co-operation between parent company and startup, this is
one the greatest benefits of CVC activity
In order to succeed in healthcare market, corporations are required to be flexible and agile
in change. Implementation of innovative ideas/technology is the key. CVC is only then
successful if failures are accepted in the organization. (Potter and Wesslund, 2016)
Rosiello and Parris (2009) investigate the motives related to strategy from VC point of view
in bio-healthcare industry. The results show that VCs are interested into market size, quality
of work/science the target company does and at what stage the target company is. VCs
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come to the startups with great expertise and bring financial support. Strategy is usually
changed when VCs come along. There are usually syndicates in bio-healthcare VC
business, which means that VCs from other regions communicate often and look for other
opportunities also outside their home. In the clusters formed by VCs and entrepreneurs a
great knowledge exchange about internationalization and R&D among others is vital.
(Rosiello and Parris, 2009)
So, in healthcare technology industry CVCs and VCs are very common and particularly
provide same kind of results within activities and motives what the literature gave earlier on
VC investments in general. The expertise (in market, technology and internationalization)
increase and risk sharing are only some of the motives of VC and CVC mentioned in the
literature.
Wilkins et al. (1997) claim that today the knowledge assets represent most of the startups,
also in healthcare and pharmaceuticals among others. Startup valuation goes through three
stages: Resume, revenues and return. Within resume one looks at founder team
capabilities/skills and experience at early stage. Later, sales and return are becoming more
important. As being noticed by many other researches in the field, management competence
is the key valuation aspect for VC investors. Author cites one VC investor who says that
there is enough capital, but not enough competent people to use it. There are some
incentives like stock options to ensure that the employees are pushing the company forward.
(Wilkins, J. et al.,1997)
Keppler et al. (2015) go through investment criteria of venture capital for medical technology
startups in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and they found that regulation is a key criterion
for venture capital. CE approval and data access are at main importance. Clinical data is
required to be sampled and tested to get CE marking. Investors wanting to invest to startup
and expansion stage companies see clinical data at higher importance than those investors
focusing on seed phase. In case the technology is fine but it is too early to invest, VCs might
decline investing but stay in contact for future. Medical technology has the market size of
over 100 million euros. Criteria for management skills i.e. experience from the field for
example is highly depended on the stage of startup life cycle. Therefore. it is necessary to
notify startup lifecycle. Also need of data and demand of medical technology are factors that
affect to VC opinion towards medical technology (medtech) startups. Key success factors
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for medtech startups were found additionally and they are represented in the table below.
(Keppler et al, 2015)
Business model and strategy Kaplan and Strömberg (2004) saw that business model is important in the
eyes of VCs. Regulatory strategy and IPR strategy are key strategies at
medical technology (Keppler et al.2015).
Market and competition Market growth is very important feature and also the size of the market
show significance of importance. Market size the VCs invest in are usually
over 100 million euros. A minority prefer to look at exit potential (based on
multiples on revenue) over market size. These sales figures are relevant in
the market. One third appreciated also competition related to market size
and growth. Later stage investors are ready to accept more competition as
long as it is protected by some kind of competitive advantage. (Keppler, S.B
et al, 2015)
Management team Management criteria are very important for VCs especially commercial
skills, industry experience and regulatory experience as they are mostly
pre-conditional for investment technical skills are necessary since at least
one person in the company should know it. Financial skills can be a positive
indication for VC investor. (Keppler, S.B et al, 2015)
Financial criteria High earnings are very important for all VCs and over 80% of VCs decline
from the deal in screening or evaluation stage if factors related to return are
not connected with VCs. About 13% of VCs thought that return is important,
but none saw it as the most important one. Endorsing new technology is
the main thing, financial issues come thereafter. Gross margin requirement
is high, nearly 40-80% and this is dues to the fact that R&D in medical
technology is a strong factor, almost 10% of sales on average. (Keppler,
S.B et al, 2015)
Table 12 Key success factors for medtech startups, Source: modified from Keppler et al, 2015
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Alemany and Villanueva (2014) explored if the criteria chosen by VCs have predicted
through investment criteria company success, in this case sales. There is the entrepreneur
/ team, market and product criteria. Out of the company sample about 14% were associated
with healthcare. In conclusion entrepreneurial and team characteristics are the only one to
explain the performance of companies in this case sales because profit itself is not a good
criterion for performance measurement. (Alemany & Villanueva, 2014)
In conclusion one can say that Wilkins et al. (1997) (more radical approach that team criteria
determines the whole value) and Alemany and Villanueva (2014) support the view of
importance of capabilities of entrepreneur and team. Alemany and Villanueva (2014) added
that in later stages financial criteria are more and more important. Within healthcare
technology (medical technology) Keppler, S.B et al, 2015 underlined that there are
regulations and technology in various relations are very important and their understanding
in entrepreneur and team level should be high. Also, Keppler, S.B et al, 2015 saw that
financial criteria were very important (not most important however) since 80% declined to
invest if the company does not show enough return potential.
Due to lack of academic literature on healthcare venture capital topic, we are ready to move
forward to interviews. With different search items I could not find any literature specifically
on the topic of healthcare analytics startups valuation which is my main research question
and topic. I tried several keywords in different databases.
I searched EBSCO – business source complete, Emerald journals and Elsevier science
direct and Google scholar. The keywords used were: Venture capital, VC, startup, start-up,
healthcare, healthcare technology, healthcare analytics, big data, valuation, valuation
method, valuation methods, investment criteria. With different ordering I found the
necessary articles but as explained already, there was no literature available for specifically
healthcare analytics startup business valuation.
We are basing our empirical research part both on short literature review and the
background information about investment criteria and valuation methods.
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5 Empirical research – Semi-structured interview
This section will tell more about the qualitative research that I am going to use in this thesis.
We will go through why the exact method has been chosen and tell a bit about the
interviewees. Finally, I will introduce the results of the interviews.
As in Chapter 3, we found that not every researcher came to the same conclusion with
valuation methods, the same applies with investment criteria. Therefore, we must think of
method that is best for our research.
Nunes et al (2014) brings in a table of research method that past researchers have done.
We can assume based on Eloranta, O (2018) and Viljamaa, V (2017) master thesis that our
sample size would probably be under 20 VCs I am going to send the interview request to.
With regards to information Nunes et al (2014 modified) gathered from old researches, with
sample size of 20 only possibilities are descriptive statistics and content analysis for
example basic information about VCs like size of investment and experience.
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Table 13 Research method of past researchers, Source: modified from Carlos Nunes et al. (2014)
Zacharakis, A. and Meyer, G.D. (1998) say also that many of the researchers on this topic
have been using post hoc methods. Criticism to this, there is the danger or bias that VCs
are not that critical nor introspective about their processes related to decision-making.
(Zacharakis and Meyer 1998)
There is another method used which is called real-time method and Zacharakis, A and
Meyer, G.D. (1998) and it is related to quantitative side and uses for example regression
analysis. The research itself uses, in addition to regression analysis, policy capturing being
familiar in psychology. Different methods provide different answers and therefore it is hard
to conclude which method is the best one. Problematic about post hoc methods used
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previously is that there was used maybe too large variety of criteria written down in
questionnaire which may lead to problem of VCs underlining too much on factors they use
and forget others. (Zacharakis and Meyer 1998)
Regarding different question types both open and closed questions have their advantages
and disadvantages for sure. The main worry about open question is that it can be time
consuming and sometimes also the understanding of answers can be tough to
underestimate. For closed question the main worry is that one can understand the questions
and answers in many ways. Indeed, regarding understanding the questions and answer
possibilities can be tough in both ways. For example, one can use different criteria that one
relates to product/service but another research relates to market criteria. Or that one may
not understand multiple method but there is another name that he or she uses more
regularly.
For me, to understand VCs criteria importance, in the questionnaire there must be also
ranking possibility. Carlos Nunes et al. (2014) goes from also wanting to identify the VCs i.e.
there are questions to which startup lifecycle phase they invest. Regarding the criteria, they
referred to researchers like MacMillan et al. (1985) and Muzyka et al. (1996). I am going to
divide the criteria into (modified from Carlos Nunes et al. (2014):
• Personality and skills of entrepreneur and management team
• Product-related criteria
• Market-related criteria
• Finance-related criteria
• Other criteria
Viljamaa, V. (2017) in his master’s thesis used an open question interview and had also
various interviewees from different areas. The research topic is very similar to mine but he
focuses on valuation methods in startups in general and not focus on specific area of
startups. The primary reason for interview was that the research questions were not that
straight forward and next questions could be applied straight to the previous answer. The
key advantage for interview over questionnaire is that the interviewer does not restrict the
number of topics that come to the actual research paper but the interviewer can keep the
discussion around the topic. (Viljamaa 2017)
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Eloranta, O. (2018) used semi-structured interview hence qualitative method. Here, the
questions and order of those are similar. Why only similar? This is because questions can
be changed and edited during the interview so the interviewer must be focused. (Eloranta,
2018)
The interviews were conducted in Finnish language. Translation of the interviews was
conducted by the author himself and the questions asked are in the appendix 8.1.
I contacted about 20 venture capital or private equity firms regarding the research. Firstly, I
called them and in all cases I sent my interview questions via email in advance so that the
people could prepare themselves for the interviews. The interviews took from half an hour
to one hour. I found the potential interviewees in Finnish Venture Capital Association website
Pääomasijoittajat ry (2018c). I selected in the industry section “Health technology” and so a
group of VCs turn up. But, since not all investors are I used also google search and Word
of mouth hints which investors could help me in this project. I took part in Terkko Health Hub
seminar on 30th of October 2018 about how different investors and funding are available
here in Finland some designed specifically for Health Technology field. This was a great
event with lots of attention created to understand communication between investor and
startups.
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As seen from the table below I managed to contact quite many people investing and advising
startups and growth companies in various stages. This is helping me to explain whether
there are actual differences between methods used in business valuation in context of health
technology startups in comparison to other fields. The diverse backgrounds of investors
represent the interesting point that there might be possible differences regarding investment
criteria and hence in valuation methods during the life cycle of startups. I am happy myself
that the interviews were rich regarding the information and insight about venture capital and
different valuation methods and criteria. Interviewees were very welcoming and open about
the industry and this can be viewed well in the quality of answers.
As the interviews were conducted in Finnish language some wordings and interpretations of
interviewees’ thoughts are subject to be interpreted by the author, Niklas Wasama. Some
interviews were conducted over the phone, few were at a meeting rooms in various locations
in the capital city region of Finland. One interview was made by email response.
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All interviewees are considered so called generalist so they have multiple interests where
they like to invest. Healthcare analytics is fairly new field so experience level of investors is
quite high and here may come a bias effect that interviewees started to think that the length
of experience means healthcare in general but as analytics has been in thoughts of
businesses then actually it makes sense that one could have even 20 years of experience.
None of the interviewee were a concentrated expert of venture capital in healthcare analytics
field. But they have some experience on healthcare sector in general. Miettinen, A (phone
interview 1.11.2018) is the only investor in this group that is investing from own assets i.e.
the VC company does not have a fund.
In color codes there are the stages related to life-cycle of companies. Please see figure 8
for reference. Sorvisto, P. (Phone interview 13.11.2018) concentrates on medical
technology and pharma IT that are a bit out of the healthcare analytics and technology but
still give to the research additional view. Also, it is important to point out that Anonymous A
(interview on 15.11.2018) viewed that they concentrate on investments outside of the range
of VC and go beyond maturity. I also interviewed one business advisor but his contribution
will not be seen because his experience on venture capital is too limited.
5.3 Results
Here comes the results of the interviews and the questions asked from interviewees.
Descriptive data is also provided to capture who the interviewees are. The point is to
understand what kind of quantitative methods like DCF, multiples, real options etc. and
qualitative investment criteria investors are using especially in healthcare analytics and
technology sector. Also, information about syndicates and future interesting areas of
healthcare analytics is asked. This part has the purpose of opening up the answers for the
research questions and reflect how they are correlated to the literature.
Not only answering research questions is important but to connect quantitative valuation
methods and qualitative methods together. Main areas of focus are naturally these two areas
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of valuation methodology. The purpose is to explain why certain valuation methods or their
parts do not seem or seem to be successful in valuation. Another thing is that since these
investors are investing in different stages of company life-cycle then according to literature
something could change in methodology.
We are interested into the quantitative methods here. In the literature it was noted that DCF,
multiples and other “traditional” valuation methods have their issues but still many VCs tend
to use them according to the literature. Also, it was introduced Berkus and Risk-factor
methods that provide wider perspective to valuation and maybe have, despite their cons,
another approach especially for valuing more effectively start-ups. I noticed through the
interviews that many of the methods were unknown for the investors and therefore I tried to
explain the methods especially Berkus and Risk-factor methods were most asked. I noted
that perhaps Berkus and Risk-factor method are not part of the quantitative method –class
and it is difficult to determine what methods are “quantitative” because usually to many
people the difference of quantitative and qualitative is small.
Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) declared that due to lack of historical data, early-stage
companies are hard to be valued on operations or its operations predictability. Multiple
method is mostly used because early-stage companies are valued based on market where
companies at the same stage and geographical area are compared. In addition, Berkus
method and (possible risk-factor) other methods are used where quantified factors like team
profile, earlier experience, comparative advantage and company strategy are valued. DCF,
Venture capital method and Real options are used never or seldom. (Salminen, A. E-mail
13.11.2018)
Sorvisto, P (Phone interview 13.11.2018) focus on medical technology and pharma IT where
in both company needs to be established at early stage but it can take easily 12 months to
10 years to conduct clinical trials and other R&D-related works. The positive cashflow is
hence far away. It is nearly impossible to discount cashflows for 15 years medicine
technology R&D project. Venture capital method is only used.
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Miettinen, A (1.11.2018 phone interview) claimed, like others, that DCF has its difficulties
and predictions about future cash flows made by the companies are not very trustworthy.
Multiple method is mostly used in terms of traditional approaches, aim is to find listed or
non-listed companies. Then it was found out after explaining Berkus method and risk factor
model that they represent in the best way the valuation. DCF model is in the background.
Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) say that DCF or other quantitative methods are used
only a little because the companies we analyze are so early stages. Well, multiple methods
are used and venture capital method to see how much money is needed to invest and how
does the cap table is distributed after that.
Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) use multiple method and venture capital method and
they are compared if the same conclusion can be achieved. Different multiples are easiest
to use and then analysis is made how much investment is needed after the first round – with
the similar method like Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018).
Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) saw that DCF is used even if the company is at 0
revenue so then best-case scenario is calculated. Venture capital method was used
previously much more but its importance has decreased because Finland is such a small
market. Multiple methods are also used with DCF. Interviewee was telling an interesting
story that what he has seen is that exit prices of VC-backed firm, 80% of valuation are based
on intuition (not only methods used) at price range of 10-20 million dollars. These are firms
that are sold because for example the team are wanted to be hired by the acquirer.
Leino, M (phone interview on 9.11.2018) tries firstly to find a comparable listed company
and the valuations. After that, venture capital method is used to determine the terminal value
and calculate IRR for investment if it makes sense reach the terminal value. DCF is seldom
used in the usual form but then actually use Monte Carlo or other simulation technique to
test parameters how they affect to return.
Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) saw that cash flow method is used in their case as
primarily focus is on companies with already cash flow of 2-20 million euros with growth
potential. Here this DCF and other quantitative methods are much better applied here as
the forecasting period and finance structure are better verified. Mostly Multiple methods and
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LBO (Leverage Buy Out) -method are used, DCF a little less than these other two. DCF and
LBO method especially take into account the finance structure change impact on analysis.
Also, interviewee would like to lift up ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) and MRR (Monthly
Recurring Revenue).
Quantitative methods are used by all our investors. The most popular method was multiple
method. Venture capital method was used also. Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) and
Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) viewed that these methods were used to together.
Discounted cash flow method was popular but its importance was only minor in many cases
and lots of critics was said about this method. Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) declared
that due to lack of historical data, early-stage companies are hard to be valued on operations
or its operations predictability. Sorvisto, P (Phone interview 13.11.2018) who is more into
medical technology and pharma IT says that DCF I very hard to use as cash flows can take
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up to 10 years or longer to arrive so forecasting is nearly impossible. This supports the
problems mentioned about DCF method in the literature. Mikkola, J (interview on
12.11.2018) saw that DCF is used even if the company is at 0 revenue so then best-case
scenario is calculated.
Even Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) saw that DCF is still beaten by multiple and LBO
methods. On the other hand, DCF and LBO method especially consider the finance structure
change impact on analysis. (Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018)
Berkus and Risk-factor-like methods were used although not perhaps with the same
structure by 3 VCs.
In all interviews quantitative methods had the minor role when talking about early-stage and
early growth startups and it came very clear to me (personal opinion) that in more late-stage
investors focused more on quantitative approaches. Again, it is hard to determine any
consensus on the methods because a lot of different methods are used in different order
and some methods are used less and some more. Other methods mentioned in the literature
for example real options, first Chicago method and specific valuation methods for intangible
assets were not mentioned. We can say also that later-stage investors Leino, M (phone
interview on 9.11.2018) and Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) are using more different
quantitative methods like simulations and LBO in addition to multiples and DCF methods.
This might come from the fact that these two investors invest into companies already having
cash flows and other parameters that makes it possible to use these methods and support
therefore the intuition and qualitative criteria that are going to be discussed next.
The purpose was with modification from Franke et al. (2008) to search which criteria would
be among most important criteria for Finnish VCs when investing into healthcare analytics
and technology startups. In most cases top three criteria were asked but in one case the
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answer was brought up already in another question with more than just one answer. In this
research the question about the top 3 most important criteria is gathered in the table below:
Name Criteria
Petri Laine 1. Real market (there is demand)
2. Technology works
3. The scale of clinical research
Tuomas Kosonen (Inventure) 1. Team
2. Market
3. Business model or technology (depending on the case)
Juha Mikkola (Capman) 1. Leadership
2. Honesty and reputation
3. Market growth/potential
Juho Mäkiaho (Korona) 1. Management team
2. The attractiveness of growth plan
3. Return on investment
Mikko Leino 1. Product – market fit
2. Team and how it fits to product – market fit
3. Entry valuation and IRR
Pasi Sorvisto (med tech and 1. Innovative service or product and its IP rights protection
pharma IT) 2. Market possibilities and the available resources
3. Team intensity and learning ability
Antti Miettinen (usko, toivo ja 1. Love (enthusiasm of the entrepreneur and team)
rakkaus) 2. Hope (Market potentiality and thinking outside the box)
3. Belief (team creditability and own belief into your thing)
Annastiina Salminen No in specific order but criteria that are underlined in the
investment decisions are: Team background, team
dynamics, sales capability, chemistry between team
members and investors and degree of readiness of
technology
As seen from the table above team and entrepreneurial characteristics were the most
important just like in other researches before like Franke et al. (2008) summarized. Market
is also very important character and especially its demand, potentiality and growth.
explained how important is to find product-market fit like also that the team fits also into the
product and market. Learning ability, chemistry, credibility and honesty were also mentioned
in the interviews as important regarding investment criteria.
Product criteria were not that popular and only one interviewee mentioned the innovation
and intellectual property rights. Also, the functionality of technology was mentioned. (Laine,
P phone interview 12.11.2018; Sorvisto, P. phone interview 13.11.2018)
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Regarding financial criteria only two investors raised their importance and this is notifiable
that both are at the end (near maturity and above). (Anonymous A interview 15.11.2018;
Leino, M phone interview 9.11.2018) Both investors underlined that they are responsible for
the investors so this is important aspect as well. They use more quantitative methods as
they analyze more mature and cash flow positive companies.
Entrepreneur and management team criteria were among literature the most popular criteria
and as we found out in the top 3 most important criteria the VCs also tend to appreciate the
most team capabilities and their connected items.
Technical skills x x x
Chemistry x x
Ambition x
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Miettinen, A. (phone interview 01.11.2018) told that the most important features of
entrepreneur and management team are: “If the entrepreneur is focused on the business
and understands it, the product, needs of customers, market potential, customer orientation
and does this positively, they are the most important things.” In short, the entrepreneur must
be aware of the market trends and lead the company through the changes by being also
customer focused. (Miettinen phone interview 01.11.2018)
Market and especially customer understanding was also important for Mikkola, J. (interview
on 12.11.2018). Sorvisto, P. (phone interview on 13.11.2018, however, concentrated the
knowledge more on the technical side so that this knowledge will able a break through,
although market understanding is part of it.
Leino, M. (phone interview 9.11.2018) saw that like Kosonen, T. (interview on 8.11.2018)
that team must have complementary skills and avoid that only one in the team knows just
one special thing. Additionally, dynamics was seen as very strong because during tough
times you have no one else to rely on than the team. It is important also to know whether
founders are also part of the management team. Dynamics come handy in terms that as
health technology is very domain-focused field and you must have deep knowledge about
the field.
Mikkola, J. (interview on 12.11.2018) told that all criteria presented were becoming more
and more important at every stage. When going further the investment decision process,
the deeper the looking at the company goes. In the first meetings number are not the topic
but the actual people their leadership philosophy. Also, interviewee gave an interesting
thought about how the reputation affects but the personal feeling matters the most, not the
past. Still reputation counts as if there is no trust then nothing can replace it.
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Laine, P. (phone interview 12.11.2018) told like Kosonen, T. (interview on 8.112018) and
Mäkiaho, J. (interview 15.11 .2018) and that experience from finance and marketing are
appreciated but not must above basic level and knowledge can be brought from job market.
Regarding health technology companies especially experience in regulatory processes and
clinical researching are appreciated.
Sorvisto, P. (phone interview on 13.11.2018) underlined team’s ability to learn and take
feedback and move forward and chemistry. He used words “intellectual honesty” in
describing that everyone makes mistakes and if you have problems you need to report about
it and not hide them. He also saw that in health care technical skills are very important,
which supports also ideas from Leino, M. (phone interview 9.11.2018).
In conclusion, one can say that honesty and integrity were the most appreciated character
of entrepreneur and team. This is not a news as VC is people business as I saw in the
interview. The chemistry between entrepreneur and investors is very important and honesty
and integrity affects both. Sorvisto, P (phone interview on 13.11.2018) said it nicely that
intellectual honesty and admitting you are wrong and learn from experience are the key.
After that comes surprisingly market understanding through importance of entrepreneur and
team needing to very well understands market and the trends and items like customer,
potential etc. affects it. (Miettinen, A phone interview 01.11.2018; Mikkola, J interview on
12.11.2018; Sorvisto, P phone interview on 13.11.2018).
Third most important was experience in various forms. Financial and Marketing skills were
appreciated but not must and can be acquired from outside (Laine, P phone interview
12.11.2018; Kosonen, T interview; Anonymous A interview 15.11 .2018). Leino, M (phone
interview 9.11.2018) saw that like Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) that team must have
complementary skills and avoid that only one in the team knows just one special thing.
Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) and Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) underlined that
team with experience of healthcare technology related research and regulation will is
beneficial.
It is also clear that teams do not have to be ready and VCs are open for changes and
additions in teams to get more skillful team according to the interview with Kosonen, T
(interview on 8.11.2018) proved it.
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5.3.4 Market criteria
Market criteria was the second most important criteria when looked at the previous literature.
Product and market usually goes hand in hand and among the three most important criteria
it was underlined that market knowledge is very important for VCs.
Networking x
Design thinking x x
For Laine, P. (phone interview 12.11.2018), on the other hand, internationalize potential is
a pre-requisite for investment. Leino, M. (phone interview 9.11.2018) explained that firstly
one must think of the home market and its achievable market share and what are the sales
figures if successful. Then one can go to Sweden but Norway is already completely another
story and to USA you should have a great plan to achieve it as it is the world’s most
competitive market.
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about markets and therefore investment team wants to encourage researchers, students
and other employees in the startups to go to meetings and events to create network. Also,
going abroad is important to see how the competitors and market works. Design thinking is
important also as world is changing constantly and this should be brought into use in market
understanding in order to create for example new business models.
In conclusion, market potential and market growth were the most important criteria found.
Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) even ranked market growth and potential to the top 3
of overall criteria. Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) explained that market needs to be
addressable, large enough and enough growth potential but again crucial is that it is
understood how well the market understanding is in the team. So, one can say that in the
team market understanding was thought to be very important so hence this reflects that also
market criteria are important.
Sorvisto, P (Phone interview 13.11.2018) and Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) see also that
market cycles are long in healthcare technology.
The product category concentrated in the literature review on the product or service being
innovative and how they are being protected by intellectual property. Other regulatory areas
came to acknowledgement later in the literature review when medicine technology was
discussed. I expect that regulatory issues are also part of health technology. Even though
only 3/8 of top 3 criteria were mentioned close to product criteria product, it is still important
to dig into more detail how product category was seen by interviewees.
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Name Antti Kosonen Juha Petri Mikko Juho Pasi Annastiina
Miettinen Tuomas Mikkola Laine Leino Mäkiaho Sorvisto Salminen
CRITERIA
Patents x x x x x x x
Regulation and permissions x x x
Uniqueness / innovativeness x x x x x
High-tech x
Miettinen, A. (phone interview 01.11.2018) opened that in any area also in health care
different permissions must be in compliant with the law and regulations. Patents are however
sometimes too heavy for companies at this lifecycle stage. The process of applying is heavy
and to the protection you may easily spend a lot of money. Also, a misusage of patents is
simple in many cases. There is a danger that time and resources goes into protecting the
innovation rather than focusing on commercialization of the business. The product could be
tested and take a risk that someone would try to intervene with similar product. This may
not be a bad thing since it is possible that the value of the market grows and so does the
market share of the company. Also, it would be better to let for example two companies seek
in, market will grow and product gets validated. Patent is more justifiable in “…for example
in healthcare technology and there is a genetic disease for example diabetes already the
market exists, and through healthcare technology a new cure is invented, in this case when
the market already exists so through innovation a new cure is invented so here patent is
more justifiable. So, if there is new product that will serve completely new market that does
not even exist, patenting does not sound sensible. “
Kosonen, T. (interview on 8.11.2018) also does not want to focus on just one area of
business fields i.e. for example healthcare. He agrees with Miettinen, A (phone interview
01.11.2018) that patents may not be needed at the early stage but for larger companies like
Nokia they serve good. Patents are to be understood in how company does business and
how it is unique. They help but not solve troubles. He shows some skepticism about patents
although his VC appreciates that someone innovates something new for the market and it
has been validated. Skepticism lures in from the fact that the competition is so high and
copy cats lie everywhere. He appreciates innovation more than patents. Here again, growing
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market where there are few other players is a good sign for market growth. (Kosonen, T.
(interview on 8.11.2018)
Mikkola, J. (interview on 12.11.2018), on the other hand raises that patents are not valuable
if you are not able to utilize them. In the case the idea is strong patents are to be used.
Healthcare companies are always international and the regulation in this area is very
important, like told by Miettinen, A (phone interview 01.11.2018), and at the same time puts
a challenge to organize because they are expensive and costly. CE- regulation compliance
is very basic but FDA regulations in the United States are already very difficult to get.
(Mikkola, J. interview on 12.11.2018
For Leino, M. (phone interview 9.11.2018) patents are again a two-headed sword with pros
and cons. In some cases, you may not even get to speak to investors if you do not already
have a patent. In a digital health area for example the protection may come from just owning
the solution that gives you a competitive advantage and you may not open this solution to
crowd via applying to a patent. Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) brings an interesting
example about innovativeness. Like Kosonen, T. (interview on 8.11.2018), he was skeptical
about the innovativeness. Leino, M. (phone interview 9.11.2018) told that sometimes
treatment solutions in healthcare are created firstly for example around heart diseases but
then (noticed by communication platforms) it could also work for diseases located in brain.
For investors it does not make much difference for what is used for if the treatment idea is
similar. (Leino, M. phone interview 9.11.2018)
Sorvisto, P. (phone interview on 13.11.2018) saw that patents are important in protecting
the competitive advantage and generate positive cash flow out of it. Like Mikkola, J.
(interview on 12.11.2018), Sorvisto, P. (phone interview on 13.11.2018) sees that if
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patenting is only then necessary when the innovation can be utilized. Sorvisto, P. (phone
interview on 13.11.2018) describes Laine, P.’s (phone interview 12.11.2018) story that
scientists may lose their competitive advantage if they publish the innovation without the
patent already applied and accepted. On the other hand, Laine, P. (phone interview
12.11.2018) sees that publishing also has the upside in getting views from key opinion
leaders from science community. Sorvisto, P. (phone interview on 13.11.2018) sees that
actually 50 000 euros invested into a good patent (in software industry getting patent is more
difficult than in pure technology) but a sum of 50 000 euros patent cost is small what
investors are willing to invest. Mikkola, J. (interview on 12.11.2018) supports the that one
should invest money into good quality patent application, only then it has some worth.
In conclusion, product and service criteria focused mainly on patents and their importance
for company valuation. Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) and Sorvisto, P (phone
interview on 13.11.2018) saw that patenting was sensible if the utilization can be done right.
Both said also that investing into protecting innovation should be done and with the right
people, otherwise patent is worthless.
Financial criteria were viewed in the literature generally the least important criteria as 2/8 of
investors listed financial criteria in top 3. However, as found out in the literature investment
does need to come with return and therefore we like to view financial criteria also. I am
thinking that as we move forward in the startup lifecycle and as it starts to become easier to
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forecast cashflows and measure financial criteria, these criteria are becoming more and
more important.
Size of investment X x x
Investment purpose X x
Entry valuation x
Miettinen, A (phone interview 01.11.2018) does usually minority investments and thinks of
exit possibilities through shareholder contract but does not like to put specific time frame on
exit. Regarding rate of return, they do not see it as operation-forwarding factor although
some return has to come of course. This comes also from the fact that this VC invests from
founder’s assets, not through fund. However, cashflow-based ratios like EBITDA and to what
the money invested go (administrative costs vs how much goes to growth) is taken into
account.
Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) wants underline that because they are running a
portfolio of companies the return of the whole portfolio is at focus. But, in every company
10x return is the opportunity we want to see but there are companies in the portfolio that do
a bit worse and ones that do better, not just binary. Investment size is naturally important
because fund has limited amount of capital. Usually it is ensured that enough resources are
reserved for next rounds but it is important that the companies show that they use the money
to create value.
Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) explained that healthcare projects take a lot of time and
take a lot of resources to run for example in terms of regulations. Therefore, there are not
that many investors in Europe specializing into healthcare. 3-10x is for Mikkola, J (interview
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on 12.11.2018) appropriate return. Investors have less impact on company’s fixed costs and
market in many cases decide what the sales margin is.
Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) underlines the return on investment and the relation
between return and risk. It is especially difficult to justify high valuation and risk when return
is low. Legal and financial due diligence are done to ensure the validity of valuation.
Investment size is from 200 000 euros to 5 million euros.
In conclusion financial criteria was only in 2 out 8 eight top 3 lists of most important criteria.
Return on investment was selected as the most important criteria. Anonymous A (interview
15.11.2018) saw that it is not sensible to invest if the expected return is not fulfilled. Also,
Salminen, A (email on 13.11.208) notified that return was very important. Leino, M (phone
interview 9.11.2018) saw that it is not advisable for companies to go to presentation with too
high valuation when return is low. Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) and Mikkola, J
(interview on 12.11.2018) agreed that appropriate level of return is 3-10x of investment.
However, Miettinen, A (phone interview 1.11.2018) saw return as important but not as a
factor that would steer operations.
Second important was different financial ratios from EBITDA to sales margins that the
investors like to pay attention also. Especially Miettinen, A (phone interview 1.11.2018)
mentioned the investment use rate for operative and growth factors.
Both Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) and Anonymous A (interview on 15.11.2018) get
also outsourced legal and financial due diligence to ensure the validity of valuation.
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5.3.7 Other criteria
As I was talking before, the purpose of this research was also to find other VC criteria
specifically for healthcare. Other criteria found in the literature review were about business
plan, fit to investment strategy, sustainability and lots of others. Now, let’s dig deeper into
what our investors have the say about other criteria.
execution
References x x
Chemistry between x x x
entrepreneur and VC
Business model x
Data quality x
technology updates
M&A deals in the market x
Value chain x
Number of patents x
Enthusiasm x
Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) rated business plan, fit to investment strategy and
chemistry of entrepreneur and VC as very important.
Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) also thought that business plan and the team’s ability
to execute it is very important. Additionally, investment strategy and its fit to portfolio is
important because investors are trusting to the VC to invest into companies that fill in the
requirements of portfolio.
Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) saw that customer retention was important aspect
whether the technology needs any updates and taking care of, this helps to analyze how
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much more stable cash inflows are coming from the technology. Additionally, paying
attention to possible data that can be utilized either now or for later stages for example in
research is important. Regarding business models, the General view is that business models
are easier to build up around therapy and treatment. In preventive the problem is that
everyone sees that this is how it should be done and all the benefits goes to the whole value
chain but it is hard to find who would pay for the benefits.
Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) saw that value chain in whole was interesting to
analyze, this means all middle men and partners. This helps to understand the stake what
the company can it acquire the in the whole chain. In addition, he saw that data utilization is
also an important criterion.
Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) saw also data utilization, quality of data and number of
patients related to revenue as important. Financial KPIs do not bring value on their own
because as in purely health side SaaS project SaaS metrics are more used as they provide
better scalability. Business plan is important but also checking background information
through interviewing clients and other stakeholders is important to reflect what needs to be
improved in the future.
Anonymous A (interview on 15.11.2018) also liked to raise reference calls as important part
of checking the business plan. The best-case scenario is that everything goes as planned
in the business plan.
In conclusion, investors saw business plan as the most important criteria but related
references (calls and interviews with stakeholders) for the plan and team validation are also
checked. (Anonymous A interview on 15.11.2018; Kosonen, T interview on 8.11.2018)
Additionally, interesting point about healthcare was the utilization of data and its quality as
criteria that was brought by Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018), Kosonen, T (interview
on 8.11.2018) and Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018).
It was notified in the literature that intuition plays a big part in the literature and it is
emphasized that the VC – startup relationship is mainly people business. Zacharakis and
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Meyer (1998) described gut feeling and its importance in the world of great uncertainties.
Zinecker and Wolf (2015) tells that the intuition of investor towards entrepreneur is very
important in addition to other factors that investor can bring to the company.
All interviewees emphasized that intuition is important, there were however some
differences in the answers. Personal match is seen important. Like Salminen, A (E-mail
13.11.2018) saw that intuition can also develop through experience you gather. VC business
is very much deeply in touch with psychology when determine team’s strengths and
weaknesses, and this is the hardest part.
Kosonen, T (interview 8.11.2018) agrees that the first impression can fail and people are
supposed to be given full chance. In technology field since the investment horizon is long,
you should not underestimate intuition and importance of both sided chemistry because VC
is co-operation. Sometimes, chemistry works but they have seen that they are not the right
investor for the company and should be noticed.
Mikkola, J (interview 12.11.2018) told that intuition means a lot when you have to make
decision that you cannot base on facts, it is just how it is and this is taught to young investors.
He put it nicely: “Any firm coming to present their case to us, and we can shoot them down in any
logical way (like that is not going to be successful at all). A good investor, however, has the ability
to see imperfect case meaning that the company has all sorts of problems but if they are fixed this
can be a success story. But the good investor cannot always base that decision on numbers or other
criteria. “
Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) was most critical than anybody else regarding that
when you get gut feeling it is hard to change it with facts. If intuition says yes to investment
turnaround with facts is a bit easier but no-feeling is nearly impossible to be turned into
positive again.
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Sorvisto, P (phone interview 13.11.2018) did not just see intuition as a definition towards
chemistry between investors and entrepreneurs but also relating to other things like
competition and market affecting the company. He said that that is why generalist investors
are in trouble because markets in cancer medicine and gadget for filming are two totally
different worlds.
Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) explained that as chemistry is very important, like
other interviewees also told, when working in team of investors it helps to look cases from
different angle. If some cases shown by scoring matrix are unclear extended research is in
order. (Leino, M 2018)
In summary, we can say that all interviewees consider intuition as important. Some say that
it first time intuition is so important that it cannot be changed but some say that in some
cases intuition can be turned around with facts. Yes, facts, Anonymous A (15.11.2018)
belongs to the investors who mostly operate out of the range of VC and it can be so that
since there are more actual financial data and other facts (for example regarding market)
intuition may play slightly smaller role and the justification for investment is easier to make.
This is rationalized in the literature when thinking of the startup lifecycle and the “easiness”
of valuation when the company grows and moves forward in the lifecycle.
For me personally intuition comes as chemistry and trust and as it was pointed out that
integrity and honesty are important factors and VCs really appreciate this quality then there
might be a crucial link between positive intuition and honesty.
7/8 investors claim that they have syndicated at least some of their investments. The
literature brought by Etula (2015), Parviainen, A (2017), Gompers et al (2016) and Manigart,
S et al (2006) list several advantages of syndications:
• Risk management through portfolio and expense risk
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• Target wider selection of investments with more capital
• Chance to gain expertized VCs to join and cooperate with
Syndication was found very important especially in the light of bringing additional expertise
to the investments. Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) was the only interviewee who
replied not having any experience with syndicates but underlined the importance of
expansion of expertise in the investor side of the table with the risk of having too many
different motivations for investment. Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) shared that it best
syndicates investors are open to each other and bring their expertise and networks to the
company and fulfill that knowledge when working in the Board.
Mikkola, J (interview on 12.11.2018) explains that CVCs have additional issues with the fact
that usually corporates send to startup a board member and he or she usually does not have
any personal incentive for performance and hence does not put all effort into it. Also, there
have been stories that in some CVCs have changed the representative even five times
during investment period.
Miettinen, A (phone interview 1.11.2018) sees CVC investments as signal that the startup
is potential investment target. Industrial players bring lots of knowledge in product and
market area especially. (Miettinen 2018)
Kosonen, T (interview 8.11.2018) told about issues that when there are too many different
investors and expectations then the time of CEO of startups goes into managing investors
and not the business as it should be.
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Another item connected to syndicates that will come when more and more investors arrive
is anti-dilution. Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) tells that to protect the fund’s investors
there must be set anti-dilution protection. Sometimes, in case of too high valuation VCs
could write a contract for advantage to take the investment back before anyone else. (Leino,
M 2018)
Laine, P (phone interview 12.11.2018) underlined also that investors are protected by
investor agreements and if minimum requirements cannot be mutually agreed between
investor and target company the investment will not work out. Miettinen, A (phone interview
1.11.2018) told that to hedge against dilution and early investing risk free shares are given
if specific value is achieved at certain investing time frame.
In summary, Syndication was found very important especially in the light of bringing
additional expertise, networks and capabilities to the company. Corporate venture capital
(CVCs) was thought to be two-way: First of all, as its best Miettinen, A (phone interview
1.11.2018) sees CVCs investments as signal that the startup is potential investment target.
But some investors noticed that CVCs have little incentive to develop the company (Mikkola,
J interview on 12.11.2018; Sorvisto, P phone interview 13.11.2018).
Another topic discussed was dilution effect when there are many investors with different
expectations. Shareholder agreement were mentioned and sometimes funds have minimum
requirements and if these do not fill up, investment does not work out.
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5.3.10 Future of healthcare technology and VC
I thought that it would be beneficial to acquire future thoughts about health technology
market and which fields are interesting from VC point of view. This is important since we do
not know much about how the technology is going to develop as today’s world is uncertain.
Clearly, following things stepped out:
NAME Antti Christian Kosonen Juha Petri Mikko Juho Pasi Annastiina
Miettinen Lardot Tuomas Mikkola Laine Leino Mäkiaho Sorvisto Salminen
THECHNOLOGY
AI/Machine learning x x X x X x x x
Virtual reality x x
Personized diagnostics and x x
treatment
E-health / apps x X x X
Medical imaging x x
Gene technology X
Mental health X
Robotics x x x
Consumer experience x
Internet of Things x
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Laine, P. (phone interview 12.11.2018) added that personal health monitoring through
digitalization will be most important field under healthcare analytics. Additionally, he warned
that although AI can be great help in diagnosis, it cannot still replace the doctor.
Sorvisto, P. (phone interview 13.11.2018) did not mention anything specific area because
there is need for health every day and possibilities can be found anywhere whether they are
medicines for difficult diseases or for diseases that have not yet been successfully cured.
He adds that Finland is great at research in medical area but that we would need VCs that
are specialized in health care.
Salminen, A (E-mail 13.11.2018) underlined that virtual reality is difficult to execute in clinical
environment and its expanding in practical use has decreased as there is shortage of
gadgets and expensive price. Advantages of personalized diagnostics however are waiting
for crucial approval. Furthermore, digitalizing of imaging is growing fast but old ways of
working and needed surface integration are slowing the development down.
AI –technology and machine learning were the most important fields of future health care
technology. Also, e-health and robotics were seen as crucial part of future health care
technology.
This master thesis had the goal to explore evaluation methods of specifically health care
technology companies especially from venture capital investor point of view. The goal was
targeted in two ways. Firstly, I conducted comprehensive background and literature review
to reflect relevant evaluation models that venture capital investors are using: Investment
criteria and “quantitative” valuation methods. Then, it was time to widen the background and
literature review and conduct the actual empirical research part on how do Finnish VCs
valuate healthcare technology startups. The research method was semi-structured interview
because the research was very new in this business segment that actual interview would
benefit the research in the future in the area of venture capital. Now in this section I would
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like to present the research questions and how were they answered to and how they are
connected to each other. The goals set gave me two research questions two study and here
is the first question:
What are the most important valuation methods for startups in the eyes of venture capital
investors found in literature review?
When we review the background information and short literature review we see to
understand that there are two parts of the evaluation phase in investment decision-making.
Firstly, I was explaining the emphasis of healthcare technology and why it is important.
When reading Parviainen, A (2017) and Kallunki and Niemelä (2007, 23-32) then it became
clear that some “quantitative” valuation methods also require using qualitative factors i.e.
the investment criteria. Therefore, the valuation methods are not that easy. First of all, the
difficulties of startup valuation were brought up and through literature different valuation
methods were introduced and explain what are their pros and cons especially when thinking
of startups. The literature also explained how previously “quantitative methods” were used
and to what extent.
Then as explained that investment criteria are part of the valuation methods we found out
that literature consists of five different criteria categorize: 1. Entrepreneur and team
characteristics 2. Market characteristics 3. Product and Service characteristics 4. Financial
characteristics 5. Other characteristics. Since the literature review did not give us very
comprehensive check on actual healthcare technology startups valuation I needed (for the
next question) to back on the general view of the valuation methods although the
characteristics of regulative, intellectual property and high-technology related to healthcare
technology were presented in the literature review.
In the literature evidence was shown that valuation methods could change throughout the
startup lifecycle.
What are the most used valuation methods by Finnish venture capital investors when they
value healthcare technology startups?
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The second question extends the existing background information and literature review to
the actual research. There were five investment criteria categorize found out in the
interviews that the Finnish VCs use: 1. Entrepreneur and team characteristics 2. Market
characteristics 3. Product and Service characteristics 4. Financial characteristics 5. Other
characteristics. As a reminder table of the top 3 most important investment criteria are once
again presented below.
Clearly as in the literature, entrepreneur and management team criteria were among
literature the most popular criteria and as we found out in the top 3 most important criteria.
In conclusion, one can say that honesty and integrity were the most appreciated character
of entrepreneur and team. This is not a news as VC is people business as I saw in the
interview. The chemistry between entrepreneur and investors is very important and honesty
and integrity affects both. Sorvisto, P (phone interview on 13.11.2018) said it nicely that
intellectual honesty and admitting you are wrong and learn from experience are the key.
After that comes surprisingly market understanding through importance of entrepreneur and
team needing to very well understands market and the trends and items like customer,
potential etc. affects it. Third most important was experience in various forms. Financial and
Marketing skills were appreciated but not must and can be acquired from outside. Team
must have complementary skills and avoid that only one in the team knows just one special
thing. Finnish VCs underlined that team with experience of healthcare technology related
research and regulation will be beneficial. It is also clear that teams do not have to be ready
and VCs are open for changes and additions in teams to get more skillful team according to
one interview proved it.
Hence, this supports the literature where Panda and Dash (2013), Nunes et al (2014), Petty,
J.S and Gruber, M (2011) and Pintado, T.R et al (2007) where trust and honesty and
understanding/skills of entrepreneur and team were underlined. Petty, J.S and Gruber, M
(2011) also saw that management team should also be replaceable and answer to the
market with skills and therefore it is understood why in the interviews it was underlined that
complementary skills must be found and the team must work together very well and that
VCs can bring additional skills from job market or other networks for example. Keppler, S.B
et al (2015) made it very clear that regulation and IPR issues are very important features of
healthcare. Therefore, it is vital also that VCs appreciate this kind of knowledge.
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One can say that market was actually very important in terms of the other criteria. Regarding
market criteria, market potential and market growth were the most important criteria found.
Out of the top 3 of overall criteria market-related criteria were the second most important.
Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) explained that market needs to be addressable, large
enough and enough growth potential but again crucial is that it is understood how well the
market understanding is in the team. So, one can say that in the team market understanding
(already important in the entrepreneurial and team characteristics) was thought to be very
important so hence this reflects that also market criteria are important. It is evitable that this
supports the literature from Zacharakis and Meyer (1998) and De Haan, M and Vinig, T
(2002) who underlined knowing the market, market size, potentiality, product-market relation
in developing new markets. Pintado, T.R et al (2007) and Keppler, S.B et al (2015) saw the
market size and growth also important.
Indeed product-market relation was also seen important. Only 3/8 of top 3 criteria were
mentioned close to product criteria. Product and service criteria focused mainly on patents
and their importance for company valuation. Some saw that patenting was sensible if the
utilization can be done right and that investing into protecting innovation should be done and
with the right people, otherwise patent is worthless. Sometimes researchers are eager to
publish the results so early patenting can be beneficial but also gain proof-of-concept
validation from science community. Miettinen, A (phone interview 01.11.2018), with support
of Kosonen, T (interview on 8.11.2018) summarizes very well that the focus should be on
the market (not trying to protect the product by all means) and test the product there and let
the market itself validate the product or service. Additionally, to product and market relation,
Leino, M (phone interview 9.11.2018) saw that the right team should fit in also. What is
interesting is that the thoughts of product or service are related to market. It clearly does not
matter how innovative the product is but it matters how it reacts and relates to the market.
This fits very well with the thoughts of Nunes et al (2014) where product and market relation
in terms of acceptance and internationalism and IPR rights were highly ranked criteria.
Keppler, S.B et al (2015) saw from medical technology field that IPR issues are vital for the
success, also support of science community in giving validation to technology. Vinig, T. and
De Haan, M. (2002) saw that in the US patents are more important than in the Netherlands.
This may be true also in case of Finland where patents are clearly two-sided discussion
topic as others say it is necessary and others tend to think otherwise. Internationalization
was also discussed and some VCs wanted to concentrate on Finnish market and others
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said that the pre-requisite was that the product or service should contain international
potentiality. For example, USA is the most competitive market and there already the
regulations are very tough, Sweden could be next after home market.
Financial criteria were only in 2 out 8 eight top 3 lists of most important criteria. Return on
investment was selected as the most important criteria. Agreed level of return was about 3-
10x of investment. However, it was notified that return is important but not as a factor that
would steer operations. Second important was different financial ratios from EBITDA to sales
margins that the investors like to pay attention also, for example the investment use rate for
operative and growth factors. More mature level VCs get also outsourced legal and financial
due diligence to ensure the validity of valuation. From the literature review the results
support Keppler, S.B et al (2015) which underlined that VCs in healthcare require high return
and look for different margins like gross margin related to high R&D costs in the field. Also,
Alemany and Villanueva (2014) viewed that in later stages financial criteria are more and
more important, which supports my research results. Furthermore, Keppler, S.B et al, 2015
saw that financial criteria were very important (not most important however) since 80%
declined to invest if the company does not show enough return potential, which supports
views of one interviewee Anonymous A (interview 15.11.2018) who thought that it is not
sensible to invest if the expected return is not fulfilled.
With the other criteria category interesting point about healthcare was the utilization of data
and its quality as criteria that was brought.
Intuition played a significant role in the literature by MacMillan et al (1987) and Zacharakis
and Meyer (1998) and Zinecker and Wolf (2015). They talked about the asymmetry of
information between VCs and entrepreneur but a positive intuition could lead to even better
chemistry between two parties. In the interviews intuition was considered likewise important.
Some said that it first time intuition is so important that it cannot be changed but some say
that in some cases intuition can be turned around with facts. Yes, facts, investors investing
into more mature companies, it can be so that since there are more actual financial data and
other facts (for example regarding market), then intuition may play slightly smaller role and
the justification for investment is easier to make. This is rationalized in the literature when
thinking of the startup lifecycle and the “easiness” of valuation when the company grows
and moves forward in the lifecycle. For me personally intuition comes as chemistry and trust
108
and as it was pointed out in the interviews that integrity and honesty are key factors and
VCs really appreciate this quality then there might be a crucial link between positive intuition
and honesty.
Quantitative methods are used by all our investors. The most popular method was multiple
method. Venture capital method was the second largest method. This result fits very well to
the investment criteria since there it was underlined that markets and its understanding was
crucial and since both of those most popular methods are more market—related the result
of quantitative criteria supports also the results of investment criteria. DCF method was seen
also as popular method but many VCs claimed the same issues like in the literature
especially related to difficulties in estimating the cash flows. Few VCs claimed that they use
also Berkus method and risk factor method –like methods in quantifying and valuing
companies. One investor who was beyond mature phase VC investor was using LBO and
as he was using more DCF –related methods than other interviewees since his companies
already demonstrated positive cash flow and history. In the literature some researchers
claimed that the traditional methods were also venture capital, multiple and DCF methods
belonged to in the sense that neither of those fit in to valuate very well startups and
technology/intangible assets. Horn et al (2015) and Sander, P and Köomägi, M (2007)
supported in the view that real options was not at all popular in Scandinavia or Europe. Lahti,
T (2011) saw the popularity of quantitative methods as that estimation of future earnings
was the most popular and DCF the second most popular and multiples were used by about
one third or less. My study shows a different result that which might come from the fact that
Lahti, T (2011) researched business angels, not actual VCs. Also, Lahti, T (2011) had 53
interviewees form different areas of the country. The questionnaire was much wider than
mine and the interviews took 0,5-1,5 hours (I had 1 hour on average time) (Lahti, T 2011).
Sander, P and Köomägi, M (2007) saw that multiples are more used in the larger markets
and sometimes the finding of comparable is hard. This however does not stop people going
to internet and search for comparable in the wider market, which is evidenced why most
interviewees used multiple methods.
All in all, this study was successful in finding the answers to research questions and
regarding the investment criteria part the literature demonstrated very strong supporting but
in the quantitative part slightly different results came. But one can still notify that there are
differences in views of valuation methods of start-ups in healthcare analytics sector. One
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can never really find 100% consensus in this matter because intuition and qualitative criteria
still play a significant role in startup-valuation. Different quantitative methods were found and
many investors seems to use so called traditional methods. In whole one can see that there
are two parts in valuing startups: investment criteria and quantitative methods. In this thesis
it is hard to determine the exact portion and ratios of investment criteria and quantitative
methods used. But I noticed that later stage investors rely more on quantitative methods in
comparison to investment criteria. Regarding monetary value of investment criteria this is
showed as best in Berkus and risk factor methods.
Validity refers to trustworthiness of the research. The main issue in the validity of research
was that most of the interviewees had generalist view on the topic of health care technology
and therefore the answers should not be seen as full indication of how healthcare analytics
startups are valued by Finnish VCs.
One issue is the whole interview situation and rational thinking. One interviewee answered
to the interview via email based on 1-5 (1 being not important and 5 being very important)
scale. Gladly open questions helped in interpreting the answers. When I was at the
interviews mostly I heard that all criteria are here important this might also affect that one
may not always use rational sensing in remembering or describing what is important and
determining investments. Therefore, it was important that the topic of intuition was brought
up to explain better the valuation process.
Also, when doing qualitative research, understanding of the terminology is perhaps not
common to the interviewees. I had to in many cases explain what is meant for example with
this valuation method. The conversations during the interviews were semi-structured which
was very interesting but for example a more concentrated approach would have put more
structure to the interviews. On the other hand, I think that with structured interviews the
results would not have been as good because in semi-structured you could ask additional
questions and widen your answers. Also, when thinking of pure surveys, they would not
have worked because people would have answered more irrational and there would not
have been place for open questions.
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There were not a very large number of VCs participating, just 8 so this may not give a very
comprehensive view on the topic. The sample was quite heterogeneous and only few
investors were either seed stage or beyond mature, which offered a broader perspective on
the topic unlike if I would have concentrated on just one life-cycle stage investors. However,
one cannot make certain conclusion on the whole Finnish VCs based on such small number
and not equally spread (in the company life-cycle) sample.
Further research opportunities can be found a lot in the area of venture capital investment
criteria and the valuation methods. This research did not reflect on what are the BEST
valuation methods in the context of healthcare technology startups. Different answers view
different criteria and hence it will be interesting to view the success of venture capitalists
based on the criteria they met. Also, there are areas of startups and technology that are to
be more thoroughly researched how the valuations are changed there.
Venture capital goes worldwide as investors are looking for opportunities and companies
are looking for founding. There are researches that look into country specific difference in
valuation but perhaps it could be more focused why founding and the number of successful
startups focus on different areas. A great example of successful startups is in the Silicon
Valley in the United States of America.
As my research was concentrating on the whole valuation theme perhaps it would be wise
in the future to concentrate in these kinds of researches on smaller parts of investment
valuation. Also, syndicates were covered only to a small degree in this thesis so it would be
beneficial to research on for example chemistry of VC syndicates and whether they can
bring more value to the companies.
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8 Appendix
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Kuinka suuri yrityksen sijoitusportfolio (Size of investment portfolio): __________M€
Vastaajan yritys haluaa olla anonyymi (Kyllä / Ei) (Company of the respondent
wants to be anonymous (Yes / No)):_______
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Perustelkaa/Justify:
__________________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Perustelkaa (Justify):
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
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d. Mitkä kriteerit ovat näissä luokissa tärkeitä teille terveysanalytiikka-startupien
kanssa:
What criteria in these classes are important for you when valuing healthcare
analytics startups:
i. Yrittäjä / johtotiimi (Entrepreneur / management teams)
ii. Tuote / palvelu (Product/service)
iii. Markkina (Market)
iv. Rahoitus / taloudelliset kriteerit (Financial criterias)
v. Muut (Other criteria)
Tärkeys (1-5)
(1 -ei tärkeä ja
Kriteeriryhmä Alakriteeri 5- hyvin tärkeä tai
Criteria group Sub-criteria sanallinen)
Importance (1-5)
(1- les important,
5 - most
important)
Yrittäjä / johtotiimi (Entrepreneur / management team)
Johtajuus (Leadership)
Rehellisyys ja maine (Honesty and
Reputation)
Tekniset taidot (Technical skills)
Talousosaaminen (Financial skills)
Markkinointi osaaminen (Marketing skills)
Kokemus toimialalta (Experience from
industry)
Markkina (Market)
Markkinakasvu (Market growth)
Markkinapotentiaali (Market potential)
Kilpailu (Competition)
Markkinakoko / kysyntä (Market volume / size
/ demand / acceptance)
Tuote / palvelu (Product / service)
Patentti ja IPR-asiat (Patent and other IPR-
issues)
Innovatiivisuus (Innovativeness)
Potentiaalisuus ulkomaille (Potential for
foreign market)
Tuote tai palvelu on korkeaa teknologiaa
(High-tech)
Rahoitus / taloudellisuus (Financial factors)
Tuottovaatimus (Expected rate of return)
Exit mahdollisuudet (Exit possibilities)
Sijoituksen koko (Size of investment)
Liikevoittoprosentti (Operating margin)
Muita (Others)
123
Tärkeys (1-5)
(1 -ei tärkeä ja
Kriteeriryhmä Alakriteeri 5- hyvin tärkeä tai
Criteria group Sub-criteria sanallinen)
Importance (1-5)
(1- les important,
5 - most
important)
Liiketoimintasuunnitelma ja sen
houkuttelevuus (Business plan and its
reliability)
Sopivuus pääomayhtiön sijoitusportfolioon (Fit
to investment strategy)
Pääomasijoittajan ja yrittäjän kemia
(Chemistry between entrepreneur and VC)
Perustele (Justify): x
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
124
6. Millaiset alueet terveysanalytiikassa ovat tulevaisuudessa kiinnostavia
pääomasijoittajien näkökulmasta?
What kind of areas in healthcare analytics are interesting from the
perspective of venture capital investors
Perustele (Justify): x
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
125