Alternative Finance
Alternative Finance
This course introduces the key models and approaches related to raising finance from sources alternative to bank lending (crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, fintech platforms).
Introduction to Management Engineering Series
This MOOC is part of the Introduction to Management Engineering series, which is designed to introduce prospect master students and people interested in managerial disciplines into the key fundamentals of Management Engineering. Through an analytical and engineering approach, the series provides basic concepts and language in the areas of Strategy, Economics, Financial Accounting, Organization, and Operations Management.
The series is the result of a collaborative design between METID, the service of Politecnico di Milano devoted to e-learning and e-collaboration, and the Study Course in Management Engineering.
See the full seriesCourse description
Thousands of startups, scaleups and small and medium-sized companies worldwide are increasingly finding capitals and investments from new providers, besides those offered by the traditional banking sector. These new providers include equity crowdfunding platforms, peer-to-peer lending, e-invoice trading, business angels, venture capitals, and several others, that are called “Alternative Finance” providers.
However, it is often difficult for financial advisors, companies, intermediaries and traditional financial operators to understand how alternative finance works, what are the main differences between the various types of alternative finance services that exist and how to identify a specific Alternative Finance service that matches the specific needs of a company at the different stages of its development.
The landscape becomes even more complicated if we look at the emergence of new generations of financial services powered by the Fintechs, i.e. computer-based applications, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, and applied to financial services to enable secured transactions, issuance of virtual currencies, etcetera.
Albeit this world is constantly evolving, its basic principles are relatively stable. Furthermore, the experience of benchmark countries shows that the Alternative Finance and the Fintechs are often surprisingly accessible to Small and Medium Enterprises, compared to the traditional financial services. Understanding and using adequately these new financial services is therefore important for both the large and the emerging businesses.
The goal of this course is to help participants navigate the world of Alternative Finance and Fintech. The course is designed to provide both basic and advanced knowledge about a wide range of different topics: crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, legal and marketing issues, risk assessment, the fintech revolution and implications for financial markets.
The course is useful for a potentially large audience. It is primarily intended for financial advisors and business consultants, but it is also potentially useful for managers of funds and crowdfunding platforms, business angels and venture capitalists, incubators, business development agencies and associations. It is also potentially useful for entrepreneurs and startuppers, individual investors and policymakers that want to know more on these new financing means.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No.792040
Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course participants will have:
- learnt about the alternative finance ecosystem in Europe;
- learnt about suggested best practices in the alternative finance industry;
- built competences and skills to successfully deliver alternative finance to SMEs;
- understood what FinTech and FinTech Innovation mean.
Prerequisites
No prerequisite knowledge is required.
Activities
The forum of this MOOC is freely accessible and participation is not guided; you can use it to compare yourself with other participants, or to discuss course contents with them.
Topic outline
-
-
Week 1 is related to the different types of Alternative Finance providers.
-
Week 2 is about startup’s evaluation, legal and marketing issues and risks for investors.
-
Week 3 is related to the actors and technologies in the FinTech Ecosystem. Part of the videos in this week have been produced and recorded by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research-University of Manchester.
-
-
Assessment
The final grade for the course is based on your results from your responses to the graded quizzes. You will successfully complete the course if you reach 60% (or more) of the total score. The maximum score possible for each quiz is given at the top of the quiz. You can see your score in the quiz on your last attempt or on the 'Grades' page.
Certificate of accomplishment
You must be registered in POK through Politecnico di Milano personal account to obtain the Certificate of Accomplishment. It will be released to anyone who successfully completed the course by achieving at least 60% of the total score in the graded quizzes and filling the final survey. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly from Politecnico di Milano web services. The Certificate of Accomplishment does not confer any academic credit, grade or degree.
Information about fees and access to materials
You can access the course absolutely free of charge and completely online.
Course faculty
Ronald Kleverlaan
Chairman of Stichting MKB Financiering, the alternative finance association in The Netherlands and managing director of the European Centre for Alternative Finance (Utrecht University). Founder and senior partner at CrowdfundingHub. Senior advisor for the European Commission on Alternative Finance, co-founder of the European Crowdfunding Network. He contributed to several books and international publications on alternative finance.
Guglielmo Pascarelli
Graduated in International Relationships and European Studies at the University of Florence (Italy). He works at the Tax & Legal office of AIFI, the Italian association of private equity, venture capital and private debt.
Stefano Molino
Master of Science (summa cum laude) in Engineering & Management from Politecnico di Torino (Italy); Ph.D in Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Partner at Innogest SGR SpA, where is currently in charge of the digital practice and focuses on deal selection, transaction management, contract negotiation and closing of new investment opportunities. Board member and advisor in several investee companies. Before joining Innogest, Stefano was Investment Manager at Piemonte High Technology and business development manager at Fondazione Torino Wireless.
Massimo Bianchi
He holds a Business Administration degree followed by full time MBA focused in Finance and Financial Services. Managing Director in the capital market industry, first in Intesa Sanpaolo Group, then in Unicredit for 5 years, followed by 12 years in Société Générale. In Epic since 2018, as Executive Board Member.
Mattia Vico
Graduated in Business and Law at the University Bocconi in Milan (Italy) with a dissertation on the comparison of the Takeover Regulations in China and Europe. In 2009 he spent seven months at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong where he attended a research program in the Accounting department. In 2010 Mattia moved to London and joined the Advisory and Recovery Value Practices at Pactum Advisers, where a multi-disciplined approach was required. In 2013 he returned to Italy working for the Corporate Finance Practice at Eidos Partners, executing several M&A and debt advisory deals. He is a chartered accountant and auditor.
Jacopo Anselmi
Graduated in Econometrics & Quantitative Economics at the University Bocconi in Milan (Italy). Master in Statistics at Yale University. Experienced Data Officer with work experiences in the financial services industry. Strong entrepreneurship professional skilled in Mathematical Modeling, R, Python, Analytical Skills, Statistical Modeling, and Entrepreneurship. Co-founder and Data Officer in the invoice trading platform Credimi.
Alexandra Gropp
Alexandra has more than 17 years of international experience in Debt Capital Markets, Asset Management and Rating Analysis. Before joining Banca Finint as Head of Placement in 2015, Alexandra was Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank in London, where she performed various roles in Capital Markets and Structured Finance. Alexandra started her career in 2002 joining Standard & Poor’s Structured Finance rating division in London. Alexandra graduated with a Master in Business Economics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Alessandro Lerro
Lawyer, expert of corporate finance, new technologies and business creation. Advisor for startup and small/medium sized companies. Chairman of the Italian Equity Crowdfunding Association and Chairman of the Scientific Committee of ASSOFINTECH. Author of several books and articles about fintech and speaker in several conferences all over the world.
Fabio Allegreni
Fabio Allegreni graduated in Business Economics at Bocconi University. Entrepreneur and consultant. He has been a consultant in digital media since 2002, and since 2013 deals with fundraising for startups. In 2015, he founded Crowd Advisors, a consulting firm specializing in crowdfunding, and is CEO of Edibeez, an editorial company that publishes the specialized websites, Crowdfunding Buzz, and BeBeez.it.
Giovanni Cucchiarato
Giovanni Cucchiarato is an Italian lawyer specialized in M&A and corporate law, Partner of the international law firm DWF. After having studied at the Universities of Bologna and Heidelberg (Germany) and made an experience in an important law firm in Berlin, he started working in Milan, mostly for international clients. He has gained a broad experience on domestic and cross border transactions, assisting international clients in the development of their business in Italy. He provides legal advice to innovative firms and start-ups, FinTech companies and crowdfunding portals, with a particular focus on equity and lending crowdfunding regulation.
Paolo Landoni
Associate Professor at Politecnico di Torino. He teaches innovation topics at MBA, Executive MBA and ad-hoc executive courses in several business schools. His research is on innovation and entrepreneurship with a focus on social innovation and sustainability. He has published many books and papers in peer-reviewed journals. He serves as a consultant for firms, non-profit organisations and governmental institutions for innovation strategies. He has been founder, investor and advisor for several start-ups and non-profit organizations.
Giancarlo Giudici
Associate professor of corporate finance at Politecnico di Milano. He belongs to the faculty of MIP Graduate School of Business where he teaches Finance. He wrote several publications on domestic and international journals on the topics of entrepreneurship, corporate financing, listings and IPOs, venture capital and crowdfunding. He is the director of the Italian Observatories on Mini-Bond and Crowdinvesting at Politecnico di Milano, School of Management. He led several projects finances by public and private entities on the topics of competitiveness and firm financing.
Mattia Ciprian
Doctorate in Corporate Finance. Co-founder of modeFinance, registered as a Rating Agency following the EU Credit Rating Agencies Regulation from 2009. In 2016 modeFinance won a European project, Horizon2020 SME Instrument, for the development of an innovative platform to provide access to credit ratings at a European level. During the period from 2003 to 2007 he worked in University of Trieste (Italy) as technical adviser (2003) and researcher (since 2004). In this period, he wrote more than ten international papers in the fields of multi-criterion optimization in finance and engineering.
Andrea Boaretto
Graduated in Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Adjunct Professor of Multichannel Marketing at MIP Graduate School of Business. Expert on the impact of ICT technologies (digital touchpoints, mobile, digital signage, social media, Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, etc.) on marketing processes. Co-author of several books and speaker in a number of events, on the above mentioned topics. Founder and CEO of Personalive.
Luca Ferrais
Graduated at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Master of Laws, Banking, Corporate Finance and Securities Law, University of Pennsylvania. Assistant of Commissioner Carmine Di Noia, CONSOB (the Italian market authority). Main area of responsibilities include: intermediaries and investor protection, asset management industry, crowdfunding, market abuse and price sensitive disclosure, enforcement procedure.
Roberto Esposito
Digital activist and blogger. European Parliament Digital Democracy Leader. CEO and founder of Derev, an innovative startup specialised in digital audience engagement, digital services and strategies, crowdfunding and social media. Member of the Fintech District community, working in digital strategy, social media and crowdfunding sectors.
Ronnie Ramlogan
Senior Lecturer at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. He gained his Ph.D. in Economics from Manchester in 1995 and after working in the private sector returned to academia in 2000. Ronnie has been an active researcher in the field of innovation studies and has contributed to academic debates on innovation systems and in particular health innovation systems, the growth and complexity of knowledge and the economy and on the relationship between innovation and development.
Jonatan Pinkse
Professor of Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at the Alliance Manchester Business School, and Executive Director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester. Jonatan’s research interests focus on strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship in the areas of corporate sustainability, business responses to climate change, and renewable energy. He has published widely on these and other topics in academic and practitioner-oriented journals, including Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Research Policy, Organization Studies, and California Management Review, among others.
Dimitri Gagliardi
Senior Research Fellow at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, AMBS, the University of Manchester. Dr Gagliardi has actively been engaged in economic analysis and applied research since 1996. His interests are in innovation and business dynamics in sectors such as Science, ICT, Medical, Pharmaceutical and high tech/knowledge intensive sectors. He is engaged in the study of economics, management and policy of science, technology and innovation.
Contact details
If you have any enquiries about the course or if you need technical assistance please contact pok@polimi.it. For further information, see FAQ page.