I. Kartanaitė “Financial Performance of Technology Startups at Different Stages of their Development” doctoral dissertation defense

Author, Institution: Inga Kartanaitė, Kaunas University of Technology

Science area, field of science: Social Sciences, Economics, S004

Scientific Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Rytis Krušinskas (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics, S004)

Dissertation Defense Board of Economics Science Field:
Prof. Dr. Daiva Dumčiuvienė (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics, S004) – chairperson
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Asta Baliutė (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics, S004)
Prof. Dr. Andrzej Buszko (University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland, Social Sciences, Economics, S004)
Chief Research Associate, Dr. Inga Konstantinavičiūtė (Lithuanian Energy Institute, Social Sciences, Economics, S 004)
Prof. Dr. Alfreda Šapkauskienė (Vilnius University, Social Sciences, Economics, S004)

Dissertation defense meeting will be at Rectorate Hall of Kaunas University of Technology (K. Donelaičio 73-402, Kaunas)

The doctoral dissertation is available at the library of Kaunas University of Technology (Gedimino 50, Kaunas)

Annotation: The number of newly created technology startups in the world is growing, but many of them fail in the first year of operation and only a small share continue to develop business, grow, and in case of success, only units of the surviving startups are able to become unicorns. In most cases, the failure is caused by the lack of knowledge and business management of startup founders, rapid and dynamic business development, lack of necessary resources to ensure rapid growth, and the high risk associated with these companies, which complicates the forecasting of the activities of these companies and makes them difficult to predict. The rapid growth of startups and their dynamic financial results encourage analyzing the financial efficiency of startups over different stages of their development. Taking this into account, the dissertation distinguishes the object of research – financial performance of technology startups over different stages of their development. And the aim of the dissertation is to create the model for evaluation of the relationships between financial performance indicators of technology startups at different stages of their development. The financial performance of globally established unicorns in the context of an initial public offering (IPO), as well as the financial performance of young Lithuanian startups in their first years of operation is analyzed in this dissertation. The research reveals the relationships between the factors analyzed over different stages of companies’ development, which allows better understanding the phenomenon of startups and unicorns.