1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about your portfolio. What have you invested in? As you take us through some of these examples, talk about why you chose to invest in those. We got the woman founder part of it. Beyond that, give us a sense of how you think about deals.

Kerry Rupp: We’re in three companies. The fund will expect to invest in 10 to 12. All three of them are in the health sector. The first is a smart watch for seniors. It’s called UnaliWear. It essentially helps with things like guards against wandering and medication reminders. One of the things that’s particularly unique about this product is, it varies its target specifically to the lifestyle and the physical health of the seniors. The font is black and white in really large font size for macular degeneration.

All of the interaction with the watch is through voice. They don’t have to push buttons and learn how to navigate a smartphone. They’re talking to >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I want to ask you one question about the cyber security practice of Wipro and how all these investments play into the dynamics of that. One thing we are hearing from CISOs is that they are bombarded with vendors trying to sell them solutions.

Cyber security is one of the most active spaces for both startups as well as venture activity. There are a lot of vendors who are trying to get mind share with CISOs and CIOs. What is your guidance to this community of entrepreneurs who are trying to sell into these buyers? For small vendors to get mindshare, it’s very difficult. How do you navigate this dynamics? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is the woman decision maker in the purchasing decision critical?

Kerry Rupp: It is critical. Not all decisions are always going to be made by women, but they are in markets that are dominantly women.

Sramana Mitra: We’re on the same page so far. Talk about geography. Where do you like to invest?

Kerry Rupp: Definitely US-based entities just because we are a small fund. We are based in Austin, Texas, and there’s a lot of opportunities here in Texas. There actually aren’t any other funds with a specific gender lens in Texas. We spend most of our time in going to events and co-working within the State. We’re pretty mobile in going to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. We will take deal flow from anywhere. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about geography?

Venu Pemmaraju: The companies that we invest in must have a go-to market play in North America. Therefore, they should have a leadership presence in North America. For example, in our current portfolio, we have companies with headquarters in Israel, India, and in the US. Just to add to that, one of the criteria also is that it is not just a simple resell opportunity.

If it’s just a simple resell opportunity, it’s not very exciting. There has to be an opportunity for us to do some value-add services on top of it. That is an important criterion. It’s just Biplab and me who are based here doing the investment, although we do have principals in India and >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures (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 Kerry  Rupp was recorded in October 2018.

Kerry Rupp, Partner at True Wealth Ventures, discusses their women-focused investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you introduced to our audience. Tell us about your investing focus. What is the size of the fund? What sized checks are you writing?

Kerry Rupp: True Wealth Ventures fund one is approximately $20 million. We’re typically focused on women-led companies, which we define as >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: The question I’m asking is a little bit beyond what you just answered. Let us say we have a company that we want to send to you for investment. This company already has product-market fit. It is already deployed in major customers. It’s understood that it fits your stage requirement and validation requirement. Beyond that, how much of your decision making is going to be predicated on the fact that this product can be brought to market leveraging Wipro’s channel?

Biplab Adhya: That plays a very strong role. At the same time, we also have to consider quite a few issues as well. The first one would be who are the other co-investors in the company. Does this company have institutional investors who have the ability to support his company going forward? That is a very important consideration. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Milos Sochor of Y Soft Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: For just your niche, you’re seeing a couple of hundred ventures from that hinterland. It’s actually very encouraging that that much entrepreneurial activity is happening in that region. That means that other sectors are getting into entrepreneurship as well. Conceivably, there are around 500 to 1,000 startups in action in that geography.

Milos Sochor: Absolutely. That would be a correct assumption. Entrepreneurship and startups have really taken off. I spent some time in the United States and I came back right when the crisis hit in 2009. I worked at an incubator that I had built into the largest incubator in the Czech Republic. When I compare what was happening in 2009, the type of deals and the way that people were presenting them, it was laughable.

The whole Silicon Valley way of raising money came and a lot of know-h0w was transferred. More Western Europe and US VCs visited and they >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures (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 Milos Sochor was recorded in June 2018.

Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju are Co-Heads of Wipro Ventures.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourselves as well as Wipro Ventures. Let’s introduce our audience to the investment activities of Wipro Ventures. >>>