2008 BVA Essay Award Winner
For the second edition of the BVA Essay Award, we received five valid essays which passed the selection criteria. The members of the jury consisted of two Academic Members (professors Th. Peeters and J.-P. Couvreur) and three Industry Members (Nathalie Engels, Alain Parthoens and Ludo Verbist), whereby the jury’s Chairperson was Nathalie Engels, chairman of the BVA Education Committee.
The jury selected as winner of the BVA Essay award 2008: "De rol van Venture Capital in het groeipad van early stage high tech ondernemingen" (Essay to qualify for the grade of Master in Applied Economics, University of Gent). Please click the hyperlink above to view the winning thesis of 2008.
Author: Annelies Bobelyn
The main conclusions of the winning thesis were that:
- companies that received VC showed a higher growth in number of employees, total assets and turnover (if financing was done by a large or super sized fund)
- companies that did not receive VC, showed a higher growth in P&L and cashflow
- these effects were often enhanced by the size of the investment fund.
2007 BVA Essay Award Winner
For the first BVA Essay Award, the BVA received six valid essays which passed the selection criteria. The members of the jury consisted of two Academic Members (professors Th. Peeters and J.-P. Couvreur) and three Industry Members (Hilde Famaey, André-Xavier Cooreman and Ludo Verbist), whereby the jury’s Chairman was André-Xavier Cooreman, chairman of the BVA.
The jury selected as winner of the BVA Essay award 2007: "The Performance of Business Angel backed companies" (Essay to qualify for the grade of Master in Applied Economics, University of Gent). Please click the hyperlink to view the winning thesis of 2007.
Author: Frank Ceenaeme
The main conclusion of this essay is that no real –positive - difference could be noticed in performance between BA companies and NBA companies, except that many BA companies would not have existed without Business Angels’ financing.
The BVA Essay Award
In cooperation with Deloitte, the Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association vzw/asbl (“BVA”) wants to promote academic research concerning venture capital and private equity, which in turn should lead to a better understanding of these activities and their added value.
A first initiative towards this goal is the organisation of an annual BVA Essay Award for the best student paper on a masters or doctoral level, with a subject relevant to the risk capital industry (in its broadest meaning). The aim is to present this award each year during the annual BVA congress, for the first time on 8 March 2007. Besides the financial reward, the best papers will also be more broadly distributed in the press and among BVA members.
The papers will be judged on 4 criteria :
- Academic quality
- Originality of the approach
- Accessibility and practicality of the subject
- Relevance of the study for the venture capital and private equity sector
€1,500 is awarded to the winning thesis.
Please click here, to find a link to the Rule Book for this contest. The main elements of this rule book are:
- The thesis has been written to get a Master degree (or equivalent, or higher) from a Belgian university.
- The candidacy for the BVA Essay Award has to be accompanied by a recommendation letter from at least 1 professor or lector.
- The thesis must not be older than 2 years.
- The thesis has been graded “with honours” or higher.
Good luck!