Valuation and Financial Analysis For Startups Specialization

In addition to discounted cash flow method, multiple method is one of the most popular methods of firm valuation. PER is often used among financial professionals to make a quick-and-dirty estimate of a firm value. In this course, you are going to learn the concept and usage of PER, PBR and PSR. In addition to these basic multiple ratios, you are going to learn how to make an estimate of enterprise value and founder’s ownership before and after additional funding. Startups require a number of financings before IPO. After taking this course, you are going to be able to answer questions such as What the price per share should be given the startup’s estimate of earnings in the future; How many shares the founder should give up to raise additional capital; and so on? In the discounted cash flow method and multiple method, you are always given earnings or cash flows to make estimate of firm value. In this course, you are also going to learn how to generate cash flows or earnings from the financial statements. After taking this course, you will be able to understand the meaning of financial statements such as balance sheet, income statement and cash flow calculation.

In the previous two courses, you have learned how to value startups using the discounted cash flow method and multiple methods. However, you have not learned how to estimate cash flows or earnings of startups. In this course, you are going to learn the concepts and usage of financial ratios. Using financial ratios such as profitability, liquidity, leverage, efficiency, and growth, you can tell financial health of a startup. Profitability ratios measure how profitable a firm is by looking at ROS, ROA, and ROE. Liquidity ratios measure how quickly a firm turns assets into cash to pay-off short-term liability and they include Current Ratio, Quick Ratio, and Cash Ratio. Leverage ratios measure how much long-term debt a firm has relative to its assets or equity. Efficiency ratios measure how efficiently a firm utilizes its assets. It is like a physical exam for humans and you can tell the fiscal status of a startup using financial ratios. You can also develop pro forma financial statement using financial ratios. Using pro forma financial statement, you can tell future financial status of a startup as well as cash flows. In addition, using information from pro forma statement and valuation methods, you can do the valuation of a startup.

In the previous course, you learned financial statement analysis and how to make estimate of future financial status. In this course, you are going to learn capital budgeting. That is, how to make an investment decision. You would like to select the best project among various projects you can take. Then, you need to know the criteria. In this course, you are going to learn investment decision criteria such as NPV and IRR, which are most popular decision rules. Using financial analysis and discounted cash flow method, you can make pro forma financial statement and estimate project cash flows. Then, you apply investment criteria to determine whether to invest or not. After learning how to apply NPV and IRR method to investment decision, you are going to learn how to evaluate NPV estimate and scenario, what-if analyses and break-even analysis. In addition to NPV and IRR, you are going to learn Payback period method and Profitability method to determine whether to invest or not when there is a political risk or capital rationing.

This is a peer review course. In the capstone project, you are going to apply what you have learned in the previous courses. The final output from this project is an estimation of a firm. You can choose either a public company or a startup depending on the availability of information on the firm. If you have your own startup, then you can do this capstone project on the startup. If not, then you can do this project of a public company. Therefore, the first step is selecting an actual company that you are interested in. Next, you have to do the research on and describe the firm’s industry and business. Based on your research, you make an estimate of firm’s growth, cash flows and earnings. In order to do this, you need to apply what you have learned in financial statement analysis. Once you find firm’s cash flows and earnings, you can apply what you have learned in discounted cash flow method and multiple methods to find the value of the company. In addition to the valuation, you will be given a hypothetical project and have to decide whether to take the project if the opportunity is given to the company of your choice. Be doing this Capstone project, you will complete your understanding of valuation and financial analysis of startups.