
Evan Zimmerman, Chairman of Jovono, discusses his fund’s investment philosophy, especially around pre-seed and seed.
Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourself and Jovono. Let’s get acquainted.
Evan Zimmerman: I started my first company when I was a teenager. It was a consumer product company called Mighty Mug. I was successful and sold millions of units. From there, I went on to start Jovono which is a venture capital firm that invests in paradigm-shifting founders. They’re solving hard problems and building delightful products.
>>>This report from Ernst & Young analyzes the global IPO trends. The energy sector dominated the top 10 IPOs and replaced tech as the top fundraiser. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.
>>>Sramana Mitra: What is the revenue trajectory that you can share? How many subscribers do you have? What is the situation now?
Eytan Bensoussan: We don’t share specifics on that. What COVID did for us was, it actually put jet fuel in the engine and nobody told us. We thought it was the end of everything. Small businesses in America were looking for some sort of a banking offering that could be run from their basement. It turned a lot of eyes on folks like us and others in our space who are designed for branchless banking. The company grew dramatically.
>>>Sramana Mitra: It’s a very crucial point where you raise your first institutional round of financing. It doesn’t have to be an institutional round, but it has to be a seed round. How much was the seed round?
Eytan Bensoussan: It was $1.7 million.
Sramana Mitra: The investors are from New York??
>>>Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC, discusses his firm’s investment thesis, and we have an interesting discussion about the definition of a “good” entrepreneur.
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Entrepreneurs are invited to the 585th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, August 11, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.
If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.
You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC, discussing his firm’s investment thesis. We had an interesting discussion about the definition of a “good” entrepreneur.
UpTerra
As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Roland Van der Meer from San Francisco, California, pitch UpTerra, a fascinating AgTech company that is already at $3M in revenue.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here: