Product details

The case tells the startup story of Doug Brenhouse, John Frank and Erik Rauch. The trio develops a new search technology that coverts text names into geographic maps. When the project was initiated in 1999, the business model was going to be advertisement-driven, but with the dot-com bust, Meta-Carta ends up selling the platform to government agencies and businesses, particularly in the oil and gas sector. The main focus of the case is financing. We follow the company through multiple rounds of financing and track the impact on equity dilution. The case ends with an offer from Sevin Rosen, a premier venture capital firm, that has significant implications on the founders and earlier round investors’ equity. The founders must decide if they should take the VC money and if so, on what terms.