The effect of introduction of Cloud Computing: The case of Venture Capital

• Název v anglickém jazyce: The effect of introduction of Cloud Computing: ; The case of Venture Capital
• Klíčová slova: cloud computing, amazon web services, elastic compute cloud, rizikový kapitál, seed investice
• Klíčová slova anglicky: cloud computing, amazon web services, elastic compute cloud, venture capital, seed investments
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2013/2014
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Institut ekonomických studií (23-IES)
• Vedoucí / školitel: prof. Ing. Michal Mejstřík, CSc.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 04.06.2014
• Datum zadání: 04.06.2014
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 15.06.2016 08:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: IES, m 105
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 13.05.2016
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 15.06.2016
• Oponenti: PhDr. František Čech, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

In the past decades the world has been experiencing a true digital revolution. We are witnessing the rise of many IT-based companies which are using technology to make market more efficient, transparent or to enhance customer experience. The rise of smartphones that started in 2007 with an introduction of the first iPhone shifted the market further. Now, everyone can permanently be online to socialize, communicate and trade. Most recently, the rise of the so-called “sharing economy” (an economy based on sharing resources using e-commerce and digital technologies, such as AirBnB, Lyft, Thumbtack, etc.) has expended the importance of digital technologies in business even further.
Some of the IT-based enterprises can yield extraordinary growth which is hardly achievable by brick and mortar businesses. The question is what are the factors differentiating stagnant firms and those experiencing rapid growth.
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to (1) identify factors which influence growth of IT-based SME’s, (2) perform analysis of acquired dataset and determine explanatory power of these factors, (3) compare own obtained results with similar research from the USA and Asia.
I will examine three internal groups of factors including structure, technology and people and three external groups which are financing, networking and environment. Data will be gathered by surveying Czech companies, research and by literature review. The empirical part will be built using the data from own questionnaire survey and employing regression models of enterprise success and growth.

Seznam odborné literatury

1. Ewens, M., R. Nanda, & M.Rhodes-Kropf (2015): "Cost of experimentation and the evolution of venture capital." Harvard Business School Entrpreneurial Management Working Paper (15-070).

2. Greene, W. H. (2003): "Econometric analysis, Volume 5." Prentice hall.

3. Koomey, J. G., C. Belady, M. Patterson, A. Santos, & K.-D. Lange (2009): "Assessing trends over time in performance, costs, and energy use for servers." Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford University, Microsoft Corporation, and Intel Corporation.

4. Gompers, P. & J.Lerner (2001): "The venture capital revolution." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(2): pp. 145-168.

5. Zhang, Q., L. Cheng, & R.Boutaba (2010): "Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges." Journal of internet services and applications 1(1): pp. 7-18.

Předběžná náplň práce

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact of introduction of Cloud Computing on Venture Capital (VC) financing in the United States. During year 2006, Amazon introduced Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services which allow companies to utilize Amazon's computing capabilities on a pay-as-you-go basis. This innovative business model enabled entrepreneurs to start companies without the requirement of building own IT infrastructure. This dramatically reduced upfront costs needed to setup an Internet-related company. Consequently, barriers to entry to Internet-related industries fell significantly, which opened new opportunities for entrepreneurs and VC investors. We presume that it led to increase in total seed financing. We also presume that introduction of S3 and EC2 did not influence later-stage investments as developed companies already have their computing capabilities.

We examine dataset published by NVCA in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers based on data from Thomson Reuters VentureXpert. It contains US VC investments from 1995 till 2015 and we analyze it using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. We complement this dataset by development of cost of IT capabilities, macroeconomic factors, selected technological variables that are potent to influence seed investments, and government subsidies to small and medium enterprises.

The outcome of this thesis determines statistical and economical significance of introduction of Amazon's Cloud Computing services on VC investment activity in USA.

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact of introduction of Cloud Computing on Venture Capital (VC) financing in the United States. During year 2006, Amazon introduced Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services which allow companies to utilize Amazon's computing capabilities on a pay-as-you-go basis. This innovative business model enabled entrepreneurs to start companies without the requirement of building own IT infrastructure. This dramatically reduced upfront costs needed to setup an Internet-related company. Consequently, barriers to entry to Internet-related industries fell significantly, which opened new opportunities for entrepreneurs and VC investors. We presume that it led to increase in total seed financing. We also presume that introduction of S3 and EC2 did not influence later-stage investments as developed companies already have their computing capabilities.

We examine dataset published by NVCA in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers based on data from Thomson Reuters VentureXpert. It contains US VC investments from 1995 till 2015 and we analyze it using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. We complement this dataset by development of cost of IT capabilities, macroeconomic factors, selected technological variables that are potent to influence seed investments, and government subsidies to small and medium enterprises.

The outcome of this thesis determines statistical and economical significance of introduction of Amazon's Cloud Computing services on VC investment activity in USA.