John Frankel is Partner at ff Venture Capital. We had an extensive discussion about Covid’s impact on the startup ecosystem, the changes we notice, so forth.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s catch up. How has the pandemic year been? What are you doing these days?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Rajeev Madhavan is Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures, a firm focused on seed-stage deep tech investing.
Sramana Mitra: We are going to start today’s session with a conversation with Rajeeev Madhavan, the founder and general partner of Clear Ventures. I have known him for a long time. He has been here before. You may have listened to his previous session. It has been a while and we want to catch up. Welcome back to the show!
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Chris talks about a set of vertical solutions in the autism care space. Fascinating conversation!
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Let’s introduce our audience to yourself as well as CentralReach.
>>>Eric Benhamou is Founder and General Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s focus on where you are in terms of the fund. What fund are you on? What is the size of the fund? What is the fund strategy now?
>>>According to an IDC report, the global IaaS and PaaS market for individuals and organizations with less than 500 employees is expected to grow at 27% CAGR from $44.4 billion in 2020 to reach $115.5 billion by 2024. New York-based DigitalOcean (NYSE: DOCN) is a leading player in the segment that went public last week.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Daniel Cohen, General partner at Viola Ventures, discusses AI, PaaS, and deep tech investments.
Sramana Mitra: We have known each other for ten years. We have observed the industry for a very long time. We often have guests with whom we’ve had long relationships.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Ken Elefant, Partner and Co-founder at Sorenson Ventures, talks about trends and his investment thesis.
Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about your funds. I know you have been working with your fund one and you are in the middle of raising your fund two. Fund one was about $100 million, right?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
I have spoken with many VCs who are looking for e-commerce companies that can scale at venture pace, which is hard to achieve. On the other side of the spectrum, however, the bootstrapped e-commerce companies are going gangbusters! Co-founder Ricky Joshi’s Saatva is one such and a terrific company.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal back story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised?
Ricky Joshi: I was born in Columbus, Ohio. I went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. I was very involved in the entrepreneurial scene there. I actually helped start the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, which is now the flagship entrepreneurial program at Dartmouth. I started my first company at school. I ended up working at a place called IPG, which had 44,000 employees. We were tasked with visual innovation. The first thing I actually did was lead Series C investment round in Facebook. That was a deal I sourced and led. It was a Series C round with $500 million valuation. Obviously, that worked out well. I was able to do a lot of things there.