Entrepreneurial Finance

Entrepreneurship
Funding, valuing and governing young innovative companies
Published

October 1, 2026

Teaching

© Anne Gärtner

Entrepreneurial Finance

© Worldspectrum, Pexels

Credits

  • 6 ECTS module
  • 2 courses: Entrepreneurial Finance: Lecture & Entrepreneurial Finance: Case Studies, taught together in one weekly Monday block

Instructors

Overview

SHOWHIDE

Young, innovative, growth-oriented companies cannot be financed like established firms. They have no track record, few tangible assets and outcomes that are both highly uncertain and extremely skewed: most ventures fail, while a handful create most of the value. Founders and investors respond with instruments and institutions of their own — staged rounds, convertible preferred stock, liquidation preferences, option pools, board seats, venture debt and specialized funds. This course explains how these instruments work, why they exist and what they do to the incentives and payoffs of everyone involved.

We follow one fictional venture through its entire financing life. ElbeCharge, a Hamburg maritime climate-tech startup founded by TUHH engineers, builds battery-electric retrofit systems for harbor vessels. Over twelve episodes it moves from founding day to an exit offer, and at every step your team takes a seat at the table: sometimes as founders, sometimes as angel, VC, board member, lender or acquirer.

Four principles shape the course:

  • Evidence over folklore. Startup finance is full of rules of thumb. We test them against current research in finance, economics and entrepreneurship, and against data from the TUHH Startup Monitor.
  • One venture, the whole journey. Every decision ElbeCharge makes — how much to raise, from whom, on which terms — constrains the next one. Following a single company makes those links visible, all the way to who gets paid what at exit.
  • Both sides of the table. A term sheet looks different from the founder’s chair than from the investor’s. You switch roles across episodes and defend your numbers against a team sitting on the other side.
  • Tools instead of spreadsheets from scratch. Interactive Case Lab apps handle the mechanics of cap tables, valuations and waterfalls, so class time goes into judgment. Every app shows its math, and you can export results to continue in Excel.

Every Monday block follows the same rhythm: the Case Clinic debriefs last week’s episode, with two teams drawn live to present; the Input covers this week’s topic with concepts, research evidence and a current real-world case; and the Case Studio launches next week’s episode with coaching.

Objectives

SHOWHIDE

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Explain why innovative startups are financed differently — relating uncertainty, information asymmetry, skewed returns and financing risk to the way investors select, stage and structure their investments.
  2. Evaluate ventures as investment opportunities — assessing a venture from an investor’s perspective, designing due diligence and benchmarking financing rounds against market data.
  3. Plan and model the financing path — building milestone-based financial plans, determining funding needs and runway, and modeling ownership and dilution across rounds, including convertible instruments and employee equity.
  4. Value startups and structure deals — applying the VC method, comparables and scenario-based valuation, analyzing term sheets and computing payoffs for all stakeholders in different exit scenarios.
  5. Compare financing sources, governance and exits — weighing angels, accelerators, venture capital, corporate and government investors, impact funds and debt, and analyzing control rights, board dynamics and exit routes, with a focus on the European and German market.
  6. Make and defend financing decisions — presenting a quantified recommendation, responding to challenges from the other side of the table and using AI tools transparently along the way.

This course prepares students for roles as founders, early startup employees, venture capital and corporate venture professionals, and innovation managers who work with startups.

Grading

  • 30% (team): Case presentations — each team presents its episode solution in the Case Clinic at least twice
  • 10% (team): Weekly episode uploads (due Sundays, 18:00) and one round as investor panel
  • 60% (individual): Three written assignments (20% each) applying the course concepts to real companies, due 22 November 2026, 20 December 2026 and 7 February 2027

Teams of 3–4 students are formed in the first session and stay together for the semester.

Target Audience

  • Master students in IWI, LIM & GTIME
  • Master students in exchange programs

Registration

Please register for the entire module Entrepreneurial Finance here: E-Learning StudIP

Time & Location

  • Case Clinic, Input & Case Studio (Lecture + Case Studies): Monday, 13:15–17:15, Building N, Room 0008

The first session takes place on Monday, 19 October 2026, the last on Monday, 25 January 2027. There are no sessions on 21 and 28 December 2026 and on 4 January 2027.

Course Notes & Materials

Access to course notes & materials here.

Preliminary Schedule

Session Date Topic ElbeCharge Episode
Part 1 Evaluate & Plan
1 October 19 Why Startup Finance Is Different E1: Founding Day
2 October 26 How Investors Decide E2: The Angel’s Due Diligence
3 November 2 Financial Planning Under Uncertainty E3: Plan to the First Milestone
4 November 9 Ownership, Dilution & Employee Equity E4: First Angels, First Hires
5 November 16 Early-Stage Money E5: Choosing Seed Money
Part 2 Price & Structure
6 November 23 Valuation E6: What Are We Worth?
7 November 30 Term Sheets & Deal Structure E7: Two Term Sheets
8 December 7 Governance & the Founder–Investor Relationship E8: Board Fight
Part 3 Survive, Finance & Exit
9 December 14 Staged Financing, Cycles & Crisis E9: Winter Is Coming
— Dec 21–Jan 4 Christmas Break
10 January 11 Beyond Equity: Debt & Alternative Finance E10: Financing the Fleet
11 January 18 Who Is on the Other Side? Investors & Funds E11: Picking the Growth Lead
12 January 25 Exits E12: The Offer (played live in class)

Literature

There is no required textbook. Slides, session pages and episodes contain everything needed for the course. Optional background for self-study:

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