Ilya A. Strebulaev

Ilya A. Strebulaev is The David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity and Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he has been a faculty member since 2004, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also is the founder and director of the Stanford GSB Venture Capital Initiative. He graduated from the London Business School with a doctorate in finance. He also holds degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University (BSc Economics) and the New Economic School, Moscow (MA Economics). 

Professor Strebulaev is an expert in corporate finance, venture and angel capital, innovation financing, corporate innovation, private equity, and financial decision-making. His work has been widely published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Review of  Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Economics.  He has been awarded a number of prestigious academic awards, including the First Paper Prize of the Brattle Award for the best corporate paper published in the Journal of Finance, the Fama-DFA Prize for the best asset pricing paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Trefftzs Award by the Western Finance Association. His research has also been featured in a variety of media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review.

His most recent research has examined many aspects of the venture capital industry. In the largest ever survey of VCs to date, he and his co-authors analyze all the aspects of decision-making by venture capitalists. He and his co-author developed a valuation framework of private VC-backed companies. In applying this framework to the valuation of highly valued VC-backed companies (called “unicorns”), hey found that these companies on average are overvalued by 50% and that many of the so-called unicorns lose their unicorn status once their fair value is taken into consideration. He has also recently researched the decision making and organizational structure of corporate VC units.

Professor Strebulaev teaches the MBA, MSx, PhD, and executive education programs, and has been awarded the Stanford MBA Distinguished Teaching Award, the Sloan Teaching Excellence Award, as well as the inaugural Masters in Management Best Teacher Award at the London Business School. He developed an MBA-level course on Angel and Venture Capital that he has been teaching for more than ten years. The course enables the students to study many aspects of innovation financing at various stages, including decision making, attracting venture and angel investments, negotiating contractual terms, valuing VC-backed companies, and analyzing the performance of venture capital funds. Recently, he also developed a course on the private equity industry that covers all aspects of the organization and design of PE firms and funds, as well as the relationship between general partners of these funds and their investors, limited partners.

Professor Strebulaev has also led many workshops and executive sessions on new innovation trends, venture capital, the ecosystem of Silicon Valley, corporate innovation, and strategic decision making for senior business and government leaders around the world. He also has been consulting companies and investors around the world on valuation of VC-backed companies, selection of VC investments and managers, and portfolio allocation. He also serves as an expert witness in litigation matters.

When not teaching or doing research, Ilya enjoys spending time with his family, reading, traveling, listening to classical music, and appreciating fine wine and art.