A fifteen-week Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) course taught jointly between a Grenoble-based partner in France and the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Students on both sides share a virtual classroom, work the same sixteen Venture Finance lesson modules, and complete joint binational assignments — testing every concept against two very different venture ecosystems: an Alpine European deep-tech hub and a mid-American ecosystem far from the coastal capital centers. The comparison is the point: the cap-table math is identical in both places, but the capital, the talent pipelines, the exits, and the regulation are not.
This is a fifteen-week intermediate course in venture finance, taught as a COIL course (Collaborative Online International Learning) jointly between a Grenoble-based partner institution in France and the University of Kentucky in Lexington. French and American students share a virtual classroom, work through the same Globefin lessons, and complete joint module assignments in mixed binational teams. The course assumes students have seen the foundations of finance (time value, risk, basic valuation); it does not assume any prior exposure to venture capital, startups, or private markets.
The class uses the sixteen-module Venture Finance lesson track as its backbone. Students arrive at each week having read the assigned module(s) and completed the built-in self-quizzes; synchronous sessions are reserved for the thing that makes this class distinctive — the comparison. Every concept is examined twice: once through the French/European venture ecosystem that the Grenoble students live inside, and once through the Kentucky/US ecosystem the Lexington students know. The running example used throughout the lessons (Pipework, Inc.) anchors the mechanics; the two real ecosystems anchor the context.
The pairing is deliberate. Neither city is its country's venture capital. Both sit a meaningful distance — geographically and culturally — from the dominant capital centers (Paris and London; the Bay Area and New York). Both are anchored by a major research university and a specific industrial base. And both illustrate the central lesson of the lesson track's international thread: that venture is not one global system but many local ecosystems, each shaped by its own capital, talent, exits, and regulation.
A European deep-tech and hard-science hub at the foot of the Alps. Anchored by CEA-Leti, the CNRS, and Université Grenoble Alpes; strong in semiconductors, nanotech, energy, and instrumentation. Embedded in the French and EU financing context: Bpifrance as a dominant public investor, the Crédit d'Impôt Recherche (research tax credit), French/EU company law, and exits that more often run through acquisition or a Euronext/US listing than a domestic IPO.
A mid-American ecosystem far from the coastal capital concentration. Anchored by the University of Kentucky; strengths in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, agritech, and equine/bourbon-adjacent industry, with Louisville (Humana, Render Capital) an hour away. Embedded in the US financing context: SAFEs and the Delaware-standard term sheet, R&D tax credits, deep US exit markets in principle but thin local deal flow in practice, and the challenge of raising from coastal funds at a distance.
Undergraduate juniors and seniors, or early master's students, in business, economics, engineering, or science-commercialization programs. Prerequisite: comfort with the Foundations of Finance material (time value of money, risk and return, basic valuation) or an equivalent introductory finance course. Comfort with basic algebra and spreadsheets is assumed; the cap-table and valuation modules involve real computation. Students should expect roughly 5–7 hours per week outside synchronous sessions for reading, quizzes, and binational team work.
The two cohorts are taught in parallel and brought together for the comparison. A typical week combines asynchronous lesson reading (done locally), a synchronous joint session bridging the time-zone gap between France and the US Eastern timezone, and binational team assignments where a French student and a Kentucky student must reconcile how the same concept plays out in their two ecosystems. The friction is productive: a discussion of "why don't more startups here just go public?" lands very differently when half the room is in a country with a thin domestic IPO market and the other half is an hour from a stock exchange but still rarely sees a local company list.
By the end of the fifteen weeks, students should be able to:
Explain why venture finance exists — the power law, asymmetric payoffs, and why banks cannot fund high-uncertainty innovation — and recognize the same logic operating in both the French and US contexts.
Read and reason about a term sheet — liquidation preference, anti-dilution, protective provisions, board composition — and judge an offer as a complete package, not just a valuation.
Work the cap-table math — SAFEs and notes, the option-pool shuffle, preference waterfalls, dilution across rounds — correctly and by hand.
Analyze a venture fund as an institution — GP/LP structure, the 10-year clock, 2-and-20, the power law applied to portfolio construction — and compute a simple fund return.
Value an early-stage company using the VC method, comparables, and scoring methods — and articulate why venture valuation is closer to a negotiation than a calculation.
Map the exit landscape — IPO, M&A, secondaries — and explain how exit-market depth differs between France/Europe and the United States, and why that difference matters upstream.
Compare venture ecosystems structurally using the four-factor lens (capital, talent, exits, regulation), applied first-hand to Grenoble and Lexington.
Run and evaluate a fundraise — the process, the funnel, the pitch — from both the founder's and the investor's side, in a final binational capstone.
Assessment is built around the lessons' self-quizzes plus a layer of course-specific work: weekly binational discussion contributions, several short comparative briefs (each contrasting how a concept plays out in France vs. Kentucky), a mid-course cap-table-and-valuation problem set, and a final capstone in which mixed teams build and pitch a financing for a venture — one French-context and one Kentucky-context version of the same company — and defend the differences. The assignment artifacts below are marked as in development; the lesson modules they rest on are fully published.
The lesson modules and their self-quizzes are fully published and available now. The course-specific assessment artifacts below are in development:
Short binational write-ups contrasting the investor landscape (Wk 3), the exit landscape (Wk 10), and a synthesis brief, each using a lesson framework as the common lens.
The cap-table-and-waterfall problem (Wk 6), worked once under US-style and once under French-style terms, with an exit comparison.
The signature Week 12 exercise: a full Grenoble-vs-Lexington comparison across capital, talent, exits, and regulation.
The Week 15 dual-financing project and pitch, evaluated from both the founder and investor sides.
In the meantime, the sixteen Venture Finance lesson modules stand on their own and can be worked through independently. Browse the Venture Finance track →