M.

Sc Technology and Innovation Management

FNCE1010: Finance for the Non-Financial Managers

Continuous assignment

Lecturer: Eddie Fleming

Student: Ina Tabacaru, D14123984

November 12nd 2014

B. Intel financial performance

Company Overview
Intel Corporation it is a well-known as a leader in technology innovations which
designs

and

manufacture

advanced

integrated

digital

platforms

such

as

microprocessors, chipsets, hardware and software and other services for computing
and communications industries.
Intel Corporation is 105 in the semiconductors industry with $52.71billion in sales,
$9.62 billion in profit and $92.35 billion in assets, making the market value of the
company over $160.0 billion in 2013.
Intel holds approximatively 80 percent of the market share for microprocessors in
which its main competitors are Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Texas Instruments
Incorporated and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Analysis
In order to analyse Intel financial statements, a comparison of financial data between
years 2012 and 2014 will be analysed. This type of comparison is called horizontal
analysis and will allow us to compare revenue and expense accounts.
In 2013 Net sales of the company slightly decreased by 1.2% from $53,341 million in
2012 together with an increase of 4.9% in costs.
There were more investments in Research and development (increase by 4.6%) as
well as a very little increase of 0.4% in MG&A.

C. Recent development in the area of crowdfunding and its

relevance in the context of conventional funding for business
The term of crowdfunding is quite new at the moment and this method of funding
only begins to grow.
The use of crowdfunding varies by industry or by the purpose of seaking funds. In
this context crowdfunding will be described and analysed in context of
conventional funding of different types of businesses.
John Kennedy (2012) describes crowdfunding as a method of raising capital in small
amount from large group of people in order to financialy support a development of an
idea or product.
This type of funding is usually conducted online through dedicated crowdfunding
websites and social media.
Depending on the project, people financially supporting these ideas may only donate
money without seeking any future return, or can become investors by investing for
a potential ROI.
First time the interest in this industry was known in US with the popular Kickstarter
crowd funding platform, where people with an innovative idea pitched it to the public
and recived investments from those who were interested to buy into this idea.
In Ireland first crowdfunding platform Fundit.ie led by Business to arts was
founded in 2011. This was based on an all-or-nothing approach, where fundraising
project were realised only if funding targets were met. In its early stage, the concept
aimed art people such musicians working on a new album, programmers leading a
new software start-up or film-makers trying to get fund for a feature film.

In 2010 another very popular platform, Seedups was launched which was calling on
technology-based start-ups. In only two months this platform has attracted more than
200 entrepreneurs from Ireland and UK (John Kennedy, 2011). Its growing pool of
investors provided by 2012 3.6m in seed capital, which highlighted the success of
this funding method from the beginning.
Nowadays this funding method became more popular due to the growth of social
network and a growing number of internet sites devoted to the topic. As mentioned
above, projects engaging in crowdfunding vary by their goals and the amount of
raising capital.
There are many examples on Kickstarter showing since 2010 that crowdfunding can
also be a viable source for entrepreneurial seed capital, allowing that to gain the initial
capital required to start their new venture.
As described by Mollich, E. (2014), 45 of the highest funded project through 2012 on
Kickstarter have turned into ongoing entrepreneurial firms.
There are different models from which crowdfunding differs from other methods of
start-up funding. First method covers humanitarian and arts projects which follow a
patronage model. Here funders are in a position of a philanthropist and do not expect
any return on their donations.
The second model described by Belleflamme, M. (2012) is lending model. Here funds
are treated as loans and funders would expect some rate of return on capital invested.
Also, in this model investors would be more interested in the social good promoted by
venture than a return generated by the loan.
Third approach is a reword-based crowdfunding and the most extensive used
nowadays. On this model funders a rewards for sponsoring a project, which can
include involvement into the project or product development or just getting discounts,
better price or other benefits for the already developed product.
The last model called equity crowdfunding, which was quite popular in the US until
2013, treats its funders as investors, giving them equity stakes or other similar return
on their investment. Since 2013 this method is generally not permitted in the US and
still relatively rare in Europe being the subject to high levels of regulations.

Recent years, science and technology projects, specifically those involving simple and
practical designs were more successful on crowdfunding sites. It is observed that the
last platform founded are catering more this types of projects aiming at the same time
the global scientific and technological online communities.
Many economists, one of them being Orly Sade, think that crowdsourcing could fill a
huge global funding gap which innovative projects and ideas are in. This type of
funding it is very important in less developed countries where there is very little
financial support for start-ups.
Fry, W. (2014) describes that while currently, there is no specific legislation in
Ireland or the EU to deal with crowdfunding, there are some expected developments
in this area. For example Central Bank of Ireland recently warned consumers that
crowdfunding, including peer-to-peer lending, is currently not a regulated activity in
Ireland and as such consumers are not protected by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme or
Investor Compensation Scheme. Fry, W. also states that it is actively monitoring
developments in the area and will continue to work closely with European authorities
in this regard.
As with other forms of public investment and funding, the need to protect investors
will most likely result in some form of legal and regulatory intervention.

References:
1. Fry, W. (2014) Crowdfunding - The New Alternative for Raising Finance,
Ireland's leading corporate law firm, Available at: http://www.williamfry.ie/,
(Accessed 10 November 2014)
2. Intel Corporation (2013),Form 10-k for the fiscal year ended December 28,
2013,(2013), Retrieved from http://intc.client.shareholder.com/intel-annual
report/2013/Intel_ARand10K_13.pdf
3. Intel Corporation (2013), Annual financial statement Q4 2013, Retrieved from:
www.intc.com

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