1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kelly Perdew of Moonshots Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the metric that you look for?

Kelly Perdew: We publish that we like to see companies that have $50,000 to $100,000 of monthly recurring revenue which translates into $600,000 to $1.2 million in ARR. The companies that we’ve invested in have been at $1 million and growing. That’s the rule. There are exceptions to every rule. We want to see that. What gets interesting though is we have to do a whole lot with the financials because your definition of recurring revenue and my definition of recurring revenue might differ.

We just want to be on the same page with the definition of what that is. When you’re talking about clients that are small and medium-sized businesses, they may only spend money every quarter. It also depends on what vertical they’re in. Being able to separate that and understand churn >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Brock Pierce of Blockchain 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 Brock Pierce was recorded in September 2018.

Brock Pierce, Co-Founder of Blockchain Capital, discusses his worldview of the Blockchain investment opportunity. Brock is one of the pioneers of investing in Blockchain companies.

Sramana Mitra: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your various activities. I know you’re an expert in Bitcoin, crypto, and Blockchain. You invest outside of those segments as well. Give us an overview of what you are up to. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kelly Perdew of Moonshots Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple of things next. I’d like to understand what are you really proud of in your portfolio. What’s really scaling? What’s looking really interesting? As you explain to us some of these case studies, give us some insights into your thinking in making the decision to invest in these companies besides the founder being a military veteran. What else do you factor into that process?

Kelly Perdew: A great example is our second investment in a company called New Knowledge. You might not have heard of their company name but I’m pretty sure you have heard of them. They’re former Army NSA founders. They are the team that identified Russian involvement in social media using bots. It’s a pretty phenomenal team. They’ve got very sophisticated monitoring and listening capabilities as well as interdiction capability. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kelly Perdew of Moonshots Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What is the definition, in your case, of late seed and early Series A? What metrics are you looking for?

Kelly Perdew: Typically, there’s an MVP. They’ve found a problem where they’ve either built a solution for and have started selling that to more than one client. They’ve raised some money. Usually, it’s in the $200,000 to $500,000 range that helped them to get to that point. Frequently, that’s friends and family, credit cards, and maybe one or two angels.

Interestingly enough, a lot of our deal flow comes from the ecosystem itself. Techstars, YCombinator, and 500 Startups are already curating lots and lots of entries to select the company that they think could be the most viable. Criteria in terms of where we want to invest is they have some revenue >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Are you chasing unicorns?

Kerry Rupp: No. The other thing about our business is that we are looking for capital-efficient companies that aren’t likely to need a Series C and maybe not even a Series B to get to their exit. We are expecting these companies to be able to see an acquisition exit in a three to five-year window. It’s really in the range where most exits happen. The data will show you that despite all the excitement of unicorns and the potential of the few that make it, most exits happen between $40 million and $70 million.

We’re looking for companies who can see a pathway to being large enough that they can be appealing acquisition targets for $100 million exits in a >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kelly Perdew of Moonshots 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 Kelly Perdew was recorded in June 2018.

Kelly Perdew is Co-founder and Managing General Partner at Moonshots Capital, a firm that has a unique investment thesis of supporting military veterans. Very interesting insights.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you share a little bit about your background as well as the background of your fund. What is the investing focus? How big is the fund? What kind of investments are you making? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the go-to market strategy in each of these cases? Are you particularly counting on clinicians recommending this? In that case, are you actively working with the clinicians to get them to recommend?

Kerry Rupp: Interestingly, both business models are available for both businesses. If I take the watch, traditionally the other types of devices in the space were clearly targeted to seniors who were in a place in their life where they were not going to care anymore. It was sold through dealer networks. That market is still available to UnaliWear.

You can imagine that this watch is also opening up a much younger demographic. Let’s say the 70 and up who are still active and maybe playing golf and tennis and doing things, but want that security of being able to connect to a call center if they hurt their head. All of a sudden, there’s a >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What about technology trends? I’m sure you’re immediately going to say AI. I know AI is a big trend. Is there anything else that you’re seeing out there that is worth highlighting?

Venu Pemmaraju: I was just going to add that. The other thing that we’re also seeing is most of these companies are trying to focus on automation, ease of use, and bringing in a consumer experience into some of these enterprise plays. Also on a very different level, the round sizes are much bigger now than what it used to be. Perhaps, it’s a reflection of the maturity of companies that Biplav was talking about even at an earlier stage. It’s also a reflection of more capital needed now to compete. There are quite a few companies in each segment.

Sramana Mitra: If it’s a venture-fundable segment that has been identified, it’s flushed with competition. In a way, less 

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