风险投资 / venture capital

「释义」

风险投资（VC）是指具备资金实力的投资家对具有专门技术并具备良好市场发展前景，但缺乏启动资金的创业家进行资助，并承担创业阶段投资失败的风险的投资。投资人投入的资金换得企业的部分股份，并以日后获得红利或出售该股权获取投资回报为目的。

风险投资的特色在于甘冒高风险以追求最大的投资报酬，并将退出风险企业所回收的资金继续投入“高风险、高科技、高成长潜力”的类似高风险企业，实现资金的循环增值。

「应用场景」

许多创始人富有创意，但缺乏促进利润增长所需的能力，也缺乏管理大型公司（每个人都希望初创公司能发展到这一步）的经验和信誉。负责把关的投资银行认为这种信誉对于IPO至关重要。IPO流程中包括路演，银行带着公司CEO和CFO向全国各地的投资机构展示，而投资机构绝不想看到由没有经验的创始人掌权的公司。VC通常控制着初创公司大部分的股权和董事会席位，对于他们来说，想实现IPO，不成熟的创始人是个问题，必须解决。

Many founders were wildly creative but lacked the discipline or skills to drive profitable growth. They also lacked the experience and the credibility to manage a large company, which is what everyone hopes a start-up will become someday. To the investment banks that acted as gatekeepers, such credibility was crucial for an IPO. Part of the IPO process was the road show, for which the bankers would fly the company CEO and CFO around the country to present to institutional investors; the last thing institutions wanted to see was an inexperienced founder at the helm of a company. To venture capitalists, who generally controlled the majority of a start-up’s equity and board seats, green and unskilled founders were a problem that had to be solved if they were to reach their IPO payday.

所以，产品在市场站稳脚跟后，VC照例会请走创始CEO，引入有经验的大公司高管，扩大销售团队，打造真正的组织（包括一个可以避免优步那类问题的HR部门），实现公开募股。

So after a product gained a foothold, VCs routinely removed founding CEOs and replaced them with “suits”—experienced executives from large companies—to scale up the sales force, build a true organization (including an HR department that would prevent problems like those at Uber), and lead the public offering.

以上文字选自《哈佛商业评论》中文版2017年12月刊《创始人别走太远》

史蒂夫·布兰克（Steve Blank）丨文

马冰仑 丨编辑