Ivey Business School (Canada)
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BitGold: Turning Digital Currency into Gold
Jean-Philippe Vergne; Brady BurkeCase IVEY-9B15M129-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyIn April 2015, BitGold, an international savings and payments service, was undergoing the final steps towards its historic initial public offering, which would take place on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange and sought to raise between $10 million to $20 million in funding. With its blending of blockchain technology and aspects of digital currencies like bitcoin, BitGold was paving the way to the legitimation of future FinTech startups by going publi...Starting at €8.20
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A Pathway for Scotiabank's Innovation: Leveraging FinTech Partnerships
Jean-Philippe Vergne; Mary Weil; Ying-Ying HsiehCase IVEY-9B17M109-EStrategyIn February 2017, Scotiabank’s vice-president of digital enablement was sitting in his office at Scotiabank’s Digital Factory in downtown Toronto. He was reflecting on his recent introduction to the financial technology (fintech) company Kabbage, and on how successfully the partnership was progressing. Scotiabank’s vice-president was considering what opportunities the bank should pursue next, specifically in the area of blockchain. The Scotiabank...Starting at €8.20
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TokenFunder: Democratizing Funding and Investing with Blockchain
Jean-Philippe Vergne; Alexander LiCase IVEY-9B18M186-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyTokenFunder Inc. (TokenFunder) was a Canadian blockchain start-up focused on developing a platform to help companies perform token offerings in a legal and compliant way. The Ontario Securities Commission had granted the firm a sandbox that permitted it tStarting at €8.20
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The Gallery Project
Jean-Philippe Vergne; Alexander (A.J.) MillerCase IVEY-9B13M072-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyA young entrepreneur is considering options for starting an art dealership. Everyone has some commonsense knowledge of what an art gallery is, yet very few have realized how competitive the art market is and what it takes to succeed in that industry. The price of a painting can be anywhere between $50 and $500,000, and that price typically does not depend on the objective properties of the artwork itself. This is where the art dealer plays an imp...Starting at €8.20
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Women's Community House and Mine101: Is Social Enterprise Worth It
Colleen SharenCase IVEY-9B14M095-EAccounting and Control, Entrepreneurship, StrategyIn May 2013, the director of transitional and community programs at Women’s Community House (WCH) must decide whether to renew the retail lease on WCH’s used-clothing boutique, Mine101. This social enterprise was launched to generate income for WCH’s children’s programming, but lost money in its first two years of operations. The decision to renew the lease begs a larger question: Should Women’s Community House continue to operate Mine101? The di...Starting at €8.20
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St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership
Colleen SharenCase IVEY-9B14C001-ELeadership and People ManagementIn May 2013, the founder and executive director of the St. John the Compassionate Mission, a faith-based, non-profit social service organization located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, needs to plan for his retirement. He has been the driving force behind the organization for the past 27 years, and it reflects his vision that meaningful work helps people get off welfare, attaining dignity and a sense of personal value in the process. To that end, th...Starting at €8.20
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Health Nut
Colleen Sharen; Vanessa M. StrikeCase IVEY-9B08M053-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyLate in the afternoon on January 20, 2006, one of the owners of The Health Nut hung up the phone. Her account manager had just called to tell her that the bank was not going to extend any further credit to her small retail natural health products (NHP) store located in Grand Bend, Ontario. She and her life and business partner had owned The Health Nut since May 2003. While they had successfully grown sales, the business was not generating enough ...Starting at €8.20
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Yuser: Funding Start-up Growth with Token Issuance
Jungsoo Ahn; Jean-Philippe VergneCase IVEY-9B20N038-EFinanceYuser Inc. (Yuser) was a young Canadian start-up based in London, Ontario, and focused on developing a gamified media sharing mobile application to help connect businesses with influencers. Yuser’s co-founders had released a marketable version of their apStarting at €8.20
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Lending Loop: FinTech Disruption in Canadian Banking
Jean-Philippe Vergne; Parker CummingCase IVEY-9B16M085-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyLending Loop, a Canadian marketplace (peer-to-peer) lending start-up, was founded in 2014 and launched to the public in 2015. It competed with other peer-to-peer lenders to challenge the Canadian chartered banks and other financial companies for part of the Canadian small-business lending market. Without an established regulatory regime in place, it operated according to its lawyers’ interpretation of securities law. The founders needed to scale ...Starting at €8.20
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The Piercer
Colleen Sharen; Nicole NolanCase IVEY-9B08M057-EEntrepreneurship, StrategyJessica Pierce and Ashley Mound have developed an innovative product for an entrepreneurship class assignment to be presented to potential investors. They now need to determine 1) which target markets have the most potential, 2) which distribution channels to use and 3) a sales volume estimate. The purpose of the case is to teach students how to use secondary research resources from a typical library to research the nature of the market for a new...Starting at €8.20