DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEFENSE ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD IN BUSINESS

PhD Student: Booma Yandava

Title: Venture Capital Investment Structure and Value Creation under Irreducible Uncertainty: Real Options, Asset Redeployability, and Platform Technologies

Date & Time: Monday, May 18th, 2026, 1:00PM – 3:00PM EST

Location: Smith 122 or via remote connection

Remote Connection:  https://bentley.zoom.us/j/96465389915

Dissertation Committee Chair: Brian Fox, Associate Professor, Management, Bentley University.

Committee Members: Rodrigo DeMello, Associate Professor, Management, Bentley University; Fred Ledley, Professor, Natural and Applied Sciences and Management, Bentley University; Peter Gianiodis, Merle E. Gilliand Professor in Entrepreneurial Finance, Duquesne University.

ABSTRACT

Integrating real options reasoning with bounded rationality and asset redeployability, I argue that certain investment structures create portfolios of strategic options whose value is realized through disciplined, state-contingent option exercise. These option portfolios are expected to be especially potent when temporal runway and opportunity breadth are aligned, and when underlying assets and capabilities are sufficiently redeployable across alternative development pathways. Through these mechanisms, venture investors and their portfolio firms can convert uncertainty and positive surprises into new strategic opportunities, enabling downstream innovation and long-term value creation.  Using the unique features of the biopharmaceutical context, I develop an Option Exercise Index (OEI) that captures observable adaptive option-exercise behavior over time, including intellectual property positioning, escalation to development milestones, program expansion or pruning, and partnering activity. I assemble archival data on venture-backed biopharma firms from 2010 to 2024 and evaluate the model using a 10-year longitudinal observation window. In doing so, the dissertation advances a process view of venture value creation under uncertainty and introduces a measurable way to capture real-options reasoning in action.