1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anshu Sharma (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Do you lead deals?

Anshu Sharma: In Silicon Valley, even $100,000 doesn’t really make you a lead in any meaningful sense.

Sramana Mitra: Depends on what stage. Maybe we should visit the stage question first and then come back to the size question.

Anshu Sharma: It’s not about leading or not leading. The way I think about it is I love being the first check in. That’s what people typically call lead. The classical angel investing is you put in $25,000 and value the company at a few million dollars and then hope for a quick next round so >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dennis Joyce of Alliance of Angels (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Going back to my question, in terms of stage validation, what is the sweet spot? Are you looking to see customers already in place? Are you looking to see revenue in place before you are willing to write a check?

Dennis Joyce: We’re looking to see as many customers lined up. A founder has to really know their space from a sales perspective. A lot of the best business plans are the ones where the sales and marketing team have lined up customers, have created inroads for their first set of customers, or have validated the product. We’re constantly driving towards more sales.

A lot of times, we see companies that don’t have any customers lined up. That’s a huge risk. You need to be constantly working towards mitigating that risk all the time. I wouldn’t say there’s one aha moment. We’re always looking for the teams that have an understanding of their product, >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines of Webb Investment Network (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s now talk about stage and how big is the fund that you’re investing from. What sized investments do you like to make?

Jonathan Pines: In terms of stage, we tend to focus on the seed stage. That’s not necessarily first angel money in but usually the first sizeable $1 million to $3 million round of funding. We invest around $500,000 in total between Maynard and the affiliates. In terms of how much investing we’re doing overall, we do about 10 new investments per year and then we also will write follow-on investments into our existing portfolio companies. We think of it, on a yearly basis, as a $5 million deployment.

Sramana Mitra: How many investments do you make a year? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anshu Sharma (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 Anshu Sharma was recorded in March 2018.

Anshu Sharma is an active angel investor who invests in Silicon Valley and India. Anshu has deep experience in the enterprise software space, and a thoughtful, sophisticated perspective. He is one of the early investors in Nutanix, which currently has a market cap of over $8.5 billion in the public market.

Sramana Mitra: Before we get into your investment activities, why don’t you tell our audience a bit about your professional >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dennis Joyce of Alliance of Angels (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 Dennis Joyce of Alliance of Angels was recorded in March 2018.

Dennis Joyce, Investor and Member of Alliance of Angels, talks about the largest angel group in the Pacific Northwest.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How does the Alliance work? What is the focus? What sized investment do you like to make?

Dennis Joyce: The Alliance of Angels is the largest angel investment network in the Pacific Northwest. We have a rotating membership of roughly >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines of Webb Investment Network (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 Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines of Webb Investment Network was recorded in March 2018.

Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines, both Directors at the Webb Investment Network, discuss their firm’s investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: One of you take the lead in introducing the Webb Investment Network. I know you have a very particular model. I’ve known Maynard Webb for a long time actually. Tell us about the program. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amos Ben-Meir at Sand Hill Angels (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Can you talk about the highlights of your portfolio?

Amos Ben-Meir: I’ve done a number of exits that range from small to reasonable. There are two companies that are worth more than a billion. One is JUUL, which is an electronic cigarette company. There are people who are not fond of that type of investment because it’s in the cigarette space but it is electronic cigarette. It’s healthier than the traditional tobacco cigarettes. That’s been a good one for me and the group.

Another one, which I made outside the group, is a company which is a solar company that is using solar energy to generate steam for enhanced oil recovery in the oil and gas industry. They’ve got a huge facility that they’ve built for PDO in Oman. They recently got a big >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amos Ben-Meir at Sand Hill Angels (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: When you’re looking at enterprise deals, what are you comfortable with in terms of validation level? Are you looking for paying customers? Product ready but with no customers? >>>