Scenario Summary:

In this scenario, the firm is very pleased with your first report and the owners of the firm, Rick Horton and Dave LaPoint, are looking to you for assistance again. The firm has recently been formed and has several interested investors, but they are deciding where and how to invest their firm’s capital. You have just completed a recommendation that focused on the various industries they should invest; the board was impressed, but they want more tangible information. You will write a two- to three-page report on recent venture capital deals that the firm may have invested.

Your Role:

You are a new investment analyst at Horton and LaPoint Ventures, and you have been asked to evaluate potential investments that were recently made. The board enjoyed your report, but they want to see what types of real investments that may have been made. In Doc Sharing, you will find a file called Top Deals of 2013. Please review this list of 10 companies that were recently funded and report back to the board about which of these you would have recommended to invest. Please note, this does not need to tie into your previous report, so you do not have to pick an investment that fits your earlier recommendation.

Activity:

For this assignment, you will draft a two- to three-page report that will be given to the company’s Board of Directors at their next board meeting. You need to look at the list of 10 companies that were recently funded as reported by MoneyTree, and then write a recommendation on which three of these companies you would have picked to invest and why you would invest. Please be sure to research each of the companies and be sure to support your recommendation with data and facts about each business. This analysis should draw upon the material given in this course, as well as any outside research that you need to conduct in order to complete the report.

Be sure to listen closely to Mr. Horton and Mr. LaPoint, because they will give you clues on the type of information they want in this report.

Key Players:

Mr. R Horton

Cofounder of Horton and LaPoint Ventures

Hi,

Great job on your first report to the board! It was very well received.

Although the board found the information interesting, they felt like they needed more information and tangible data.

With that in mind, we would like you to write another recommendation based on real deals that have recently transpired. We want you to research the big deals in the first quarter of 2013, and tell us which of these three you would have recommended to invest.

Although we liked your recommendation on what to invest in last week, you do not need to use those criteria for this report.

Davy will give you more information on how to structure this report and specifics of the task.

Again, great work on the first report. I expect the same level of detail in your follow-up report.

Have a great day!

Mr. D. LaPoint

Cofrounder of Horton and LaPoint Ventures

Thank you Ricky, have a good day.

I would agree with Mr. Horton on your first report; it was well done.

In this report, please view the document that you can find in Doc Sharing called Top Deals of 2013. In this report, you will find 10 companies listed that have recently received some funding. We recognized that it is too late to invest in these ideas. We want to get a postmortem report on the companies we might have invested in if we were in a position to finance these deals.

Please review these companies and look at their websites and their product or service offerings, the financials (if available), their industries, and any other important and pertinent information, and let us know what you think.

Like last time, we want you to pick three of these companies and rank them in order. Tell us a little bit about each company, and then tell us why you would recommend each of these for our firm.

Be sure to do solid research and cite your sources. I look forward to reading your analysis. Have a great day!