1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jose Deustua of UTEC Ventures (Part 3)

Jose Deustua: We also have a platform called Anvi. They teach English. Currently, we know that most people in Latin America are not good in speaking English. They need to speak English to progress in their work. Even though there are a lot of solutions about how to learn English, this platform is new in the sense that it incorporates both the coaching, coach, and the student.

They also focus on specific segments that are not well-addressed by these huge brands of English courses. There’s another option that’s made for cooking lessons.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jose Deustua of UTEC Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the companies. What problems are they solving?

Jose Duestua: We have one startup that’s focusing on changing the way teachers teach in K12. In Latin America, we’re lagging behind in using technology in classrooms.

This startup is trying to put all textbooks on a platform where you can learn from the platform but also incorporate artificial intelligence. You can customize educational training and programs for each student.

15 Questions for Managers of Technology Startup Accelerators

On August 23, 2013, my Harvard Business Review article, The Problem with Incubators and How to Solve Them, was published. At the time, there were 7,500 incubators and accelerators in the market.

There is a very real knowledge gap in the early stage start-up game, on both sides of the table. First-time entrepreneurs lack the seasoning to captain a steady ship through turbulent waters. Inexperienced friends and family (and, increasingly, crowdsourced investors) lack the ability to gauge the viability of a business, or to mentor naïve entrepreneurs.

This knowledge gap, I have come to believe, is best filled by savvy incubators. However, there are over 7,500 business incubators around the world. Most of them fail.

I don’t know what the number is today. I do know that the phenomenon has now spread globally.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I make a very clear distinction between real unicorns and pseudo-unicorns. The problem is there are a few unicorns in the market that are legitimate and it’s full of pseudo-unicorns.

Sunil Bhargava: I agree. It’s always interesting to hear those stories. They’re very educational into what is what for them. A friend of mine built a SaaS company, which made $5 million a year in revenue and then sold it. They have a very nice lifestyle. That’s not a bad thing to do.

Sramana Mitra: We have case study after case study of companies that have built incredibly good self-financed bootstrapped businesses at this point. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: There’s a lot going on in Vancouver, especially because the Visa situation is a much easier one in Canada. What are some of your notable companies? You’ve mentioned a few along the way. Have you had exits, for instance, that you want to discuss?

Sunil Bhargava: It’s too early for big exits. In fund two, Outdoorsy is going to go out and raise its Series B. They’re doing phenomenally well. One of the things exits and acquisitions are coming at much bigger valuations. Some of our companies are getting to the Series B level. A lot of them are getting to the Series A level.

In fund two, we had a company that was based out of India. Most of the team was in Bangalore. It’s in the gaming space. They >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The numbers that you quoted like $1 million to $2 million investment in a $5 million round, from the universe that we operate in, people are not ready to raise a $5 million round before a Series A usually. That’s what I find a bit confusing in how you position yourself as a fund.

Sunil Bhargava: $5 million is at the top end. We’ve invested in a company that ended up getting into YC. They raised $3 million when we put in some money. Now, they’re going to raise a $6 million round. The key thing is they didn’t have an operational system in place. They built some stuff. They got some prototype done, but they didn’t have a clear path to scale. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: The question is more about trends. In the companies that you’ve seen, what are people working on that are interesting?

Sunil Bhargava: It’s extremely broad. We have companies in the construction space. We have companies in the food space. We have companies in the transportation space. Now you hear a lot about Blockchain. I think it’s a very wide spectrum. The best way to get a better sense of the breadth of the companies is to go and look at the variety of different types of problems that are being addressed by a single YC class. You look at that. There are a hundred companies in there. There are B2B and B2C. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Capital (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Sunil Bhargava was recorded in October 2017. 

Sunil Bhargava, Founder and Managing Partner, Tandem Capital, helped us explore the difference of post-seed versus pre-Series A financing.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Tandem. What is the focus of the firm? How big is the fund? What size investments are you making?

Sunil Bhargava: We are currently investing out of our third fund. It’s a $100 million fund. Our first check is usually $1 million >>>