FINS6025 Entrepreneurial Finance
Semester 2, 2023
GROUP ASSIGNMENT (30%)
Due date: 20 Oct 2023 at 23:59
Task Summary:
The objective of this assessment is to apply the knowledge that you acquire in
Entrepreneurial Finance in a practical context. You assume the role of a group of founders,
working on an exciting new business opportunity. You are seeking to secure funding from
venture capitalists (or angel investors).
Your task is to prepare a business plan, a financial plan and a pitching video that can be sent
to investors as a comprehensive funding proposal package.
Learning Outcomes:
At the completion of this assignment, you expected to acquire and demonstrate:
 in-depth understandings of the resource requirements, success factors, and critical
challenges facing young startups
 the relevant technical skills in making quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a
high growth business opportunity undertaken by a private company at the early stage
of its development cycle
 the ability to apply these knowledge and skills into real a business scenario of your
choice
 the ability to collect and compile important product-market and financial information
as well as to produce and present a detailed and convincing financial projections
 the ability to succinctly and convincingly communicate the merits of your proposed
business opportunity to investors
 the ability to work cooperatively in a group.
Selecting the Opportunity:
Each group can choose between coming up with a completely new business idea OR picking
an existing non-listed company. For the first option, imagine yourself founding your
company based on the idea. For the second option, the existing company should be less than
5 years old, and you should wind back the clock to assume that you are at day one of the
business, when it is still in the development phase.
You should select the idea/company based on whether your interests / expertise / knowledge
/ aspiration. But it is important to keep in mind that the opportunity must be of substantial
scale and growth potential, worthy to attracting initial seed funding and follow-on financing
from professional investors (angels and VCs).
If you write about a new business idea, you should assume that the current business
conditions (today) apply. If you pick an existing company, you should take into account the
business conditions at the time when that business was founded.
Team Format:
The assignment is a group assignment and must be done in groups of your choice of no
more than 5 students. We also consider any group with 4 members to be of sufficient size.
All students must be in the same tutorial class. If you cannot find a group or find a
sufficient number of members by the end of week 3 then you should seek help from your
tutor.
Contributions and Responsibilities:
Group assignments can sometimes attract a “free-rider” who fails to make a fair contribution
towards the assignment workload. When you establish your group, you should clearly set
out the expectations for workload in your assignment plan. All of this information can be
used to resolve group conflicts, review individual members’ performance and penalise
students who are deemed to have not made a fair and reasonable contribution by the
LECTURER.
In order to ensure equity in the group, all groups will be required to complete an assignment
plan indicating: (1) the division/collaboration of tasks among group members, (2) the
schedule of meetings (including online), and (3) all internal due dates (for each group
member and/or the entire group). This must be done in the first group meeting. A template
can be found at the end of this document.
The assignment plan must be submitted with the report as attachments.
It is also imperative that you identify groups conflicts and bring them to the attention of the
lecturer early (i.e. as soon as they arise) and that records of all communication, meeting
attendances, submission schedules, and input documents are kept by each group member. In
the event of a serious group conflict, where there is disagreement about individual
contributions, the lecturer will adjust the marks individually based on this additional
information.
The lecturer will NOT resolve any group conflicts reported within three days of the
assignment due date and after the due date. You should set final internal deadlines well
before the submission to ensure that there is enough time to put together the final touches.
Writing your Proposal:
The proposal should be written for people external to the company, i.e. investor-centric. It
must market the company well and provide investors with the information they need to
determine whether they will invest in your firm or not.
The recommended format is:
For the business plan:
a) Use the Business Model Canvas (see the note at the end of this document) to
summarize the opportunity and the business model (this is intended to serve as a summary
page, so no executive summary/introduction/conclusion page is needed). It is recommended
that the Business Model Canvas contains hyperlinks to relevant sections which discuss the
business plan in detail (see point b below)
b) Describe in depth the 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas in relation to
your business idea/company.
For the financial plan:
a) Identify and justify key financial assumptions developed from your business model
(as discussed in the business plan above)
b) Provide comprehensive cash flow forecasts based on the above assumptions,
including an analysis of net cash burn and cash runway, sales growth rate and break-even
point.
c) Determine external funding requirements for the first 5 years
d) Value the business based on a combination of methods (e.g., DCF, Venture Capital
Method and Valuation Multiples)
e) Propose to prospective first-round investors the key investment terms and the
proforma capitalization table.
f) Provide the Excel model containing your calculation for verification.
(The business plan and financial plan can be submitted as one document)
For the pitching video:
Record a (maximum) 10-minute pitch to potential investors summarising the business
opportunity, key success factors, financial projections, and principal investment terms.
Resources:
There are many websites which may assist you in preparing your proposal. Start with this
classic article: https://hbr.org/1985/05/how-to-write-a-winning-business-plan. Also
download some business plan samples to familiarise yourself with the content and writing
style of a business plan. However, you should note that copying the ideas or parts of another
business plan is cheating and will be considered as academic misconduct.
The following resources may assist you with market research and obtaining financial
information:
Finanalysis: all information on Australian listed firms. Access through the library website.
Yahoo! Finance: offers basic pricing information for comparable listed firms.
Crunchbase: like a Wikipedia for startups. A community-based database of the startup
ecosystem, providing good data on investment rounds and also valuation.
Pitchbook: similar to Crunchbase but not as useful given that most data are hidden.
Factiva: Full-text newspaper articles and industry analyses. Access through the library
website.
Further resources and examples will be provided on the Canvas “Assignment” page during
the semester.
Assessment Criteria:
The following criteria will be used for assessing your funding proposal:
 Whether your business plans and the pitching video clearly articulate and justify the
likelihood of success of the business in the future.
 Whether your financial projections provide a good prediction for the project and can
be clearly derived from the business plan.
 Whether both the business plan and the financial plan are developed from good
research and understandings of underlying entrepreneurial finance issues/concepts
 Whether the methodology and assumptions you use for your valuations are sound.
 Whether the structure of the deal is the most appropriate for the growth of the
business.
 Whether the analysis in the whole package is CORRECT and CLEAR. That is, it
covers a reasonable amount of the required information and that there were no errors,
inconsistencies.
 Whether the proposal is COMPELLING. That is, it should effectively communicate
and support the main selling points.
 Whether the whole package is well presented.
The breakdown of the marks are:
 Business plan: 8 marks
 Financial plan: 15 marks
 Pitching video: 7 marks
Due Date and Terms:
Due date: 20 Oct 2023 at 11:59 pm
Submission materials: Assignment Plan, Business Plan and Financial Plan (in PDF), Excel
Model, and Pitching Video (Canvas-workable video file format)
Late submission: deduction of 10% per calendar day if any of the above materials is
submitted late.
Word and page limit: less than 4000 words and less than 10 pages. (deduction of 10% per
extra 400 words)
Support and Consultation:
As the assignment is expected to be of high standards, both in terms of contents and
professionalism, the lecturer will provide extensive help with your preparation of the
proposal.
The lecturer will be available during his usual consultation hours listed in the course outline
to answer technical questions related to lecture contents that are related to the assignment
and will help clarify any expectations related to the assignments.
Assignment plan (a template)
Tasks Due date Responsibility Completed on time? Need substantial revisions?
(assessed at due date) (assessed at due date)
- Picking company/idea DDD Group Yes No
- Collectingdata DDD Students A and B Yes No
- Strategy discussion DDD Student A Yes Yes (see further tasks below)
- Set valuation assumptions DDD Students B and C No (New due date?)
- …
- Revise peer firms’ data DDD Student A Yes No
- …
- Write business plan DDD Student D Yes No
- ….
- Complete the draft & video 17 Oct Group Yes
- Submit the assignment 20 Oct Group Yes
The Submission Date minus 3 days is a critical milestone that must be met by all group members. All group members must ensure that their
assigned work is completed to the group’s required standards by that date, leaving enough time for minor revisions, proof reading, and video editing.
This assignment plan must be submitted as part of the final report and signed by all members of the group.
Business Model Canvas (What it looks like)
Business Model Canvas (Example)