1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Oded Hermoni of Rhodium Venture Partners (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 Oded Hermoni was recorded in October 2017. 

Oded Hermoni is Managing Partner at Rhodium Venture Partners, and is also co-founder of an Angel group, J-Angels.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Rhodium. What is the focus of the firm? How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make?

Oded Hermoni: Rhodium is not the typical fund. It’s an Israeli-US investment arm of a family office. We have only one LP. We >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Dougery of Inventus Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple of case studies of the kinds of companies that you have invested in and had successes with. If you could, for the benefit of our entrepreneurs, walk us through the logic and thought process of the investment thesis when you invested.

John Dougery: I’ll start with companies that are based in Bangalore. It’s a very typical example of how we work. This is an entrepreneur that we started tracking and mentoring because we liked him back in 2006. This was when we were just forming the firm. We didn’t have the capital yet, but we were engaged in the community and we helped him find his seed financing. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Raj Singh of Singh Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What do you see in the deal flow? We are in the end of 2017. In the last three months, what trends have you spotted?

Raj Singh: To be very honest, the deal flow is slowing down towards the end of the year, but we still see a lot of the P2P model. I’ve sees looking at a lot of different use cases in the P2P model in the fourth quarter that I’ve not seen in the first few quarters of 2017. Like I said, the deal flow does seem to be slowing down as we get into the holidays.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of trends are you looking to invest into? The first question is what are you seeing in the inbound deal flow. What broad trends do you invest against at this point going forward? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Dougery of Inventus Capital (Part 2)

John Dougery: There are many opportunities and efficiencies in India to build world-class products for business customers out of India. Our focus was, and continues to be, both consumer consumption in India and also business consumption both in India and globally.

About half our companies are business software companies with an increasingly heavy dose of services inside them. It’s not just technology. It can be very high-end advanced services. India has gone through a huge renaissance in the last two years. There has been more than a doubling and tripling in the amount of capital, number of companies being started, and the quality of companies being started. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Raj Singh of Singh 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 Raj Singh was recorded in September 2016. 

Raj Singh, Founder and Executive Director at Singh Ventures, offers a window into his firm’s investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What size investments do you make?

Raj Singh: I run an early-stage VC fund. We are about $50 million right now. We were founded about two years ago. We focus on mobile technologies. We get involved with anywhere from a concept stage to less than $10,000 a month of recurring revenue. What’s really unique about our fund is what we do in addition to the capital. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Dougery of Inventus 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 John Dougery was recorded in May 2016. 

John Dougery, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Inventus Capital, a fund that is one of the earliest players in the Silicon Valley – India corridor, discusses his firm’s investment focus, as well as reviews the trends of the Indian market.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a little bit about your firm. You’re a Co-Founder of the firm so you must have founded the firm with a certain thesis. How has it evolved over the years that you’ve been in action in this corridor?

John Dougery: This firm is one of my entrepreneurial efforts along with my co-founders. It all came out of my mutual >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rehan Yar Khan of Orios Venture Partners (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Explain the Zomato business model that you think is going to scale.

Rehan Yar Khan: Zomato occupies premium mindshare when it comes to food. From that, you can develop several monetization levers. Some of them get switched on. The older ones like Yelp is where you monetize listings. Newer ones involve food orders where they get a commission on every order. Very soon, they will come up with some very interesting models. They will actually start monetizing your bill at the restaurant. That is a big one. Monetizing the bill of the restaurant is the big one. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ron Heinz of Signal Peak Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the typical round size?

Ron Heinz: We typically put in between $3 million and $6 million. Our ownership structures tend to be between 15% to 25%. Our average check size upfront is $5 million and the reserve would be double of that.

Sramana Mitra: When you do a Series A in that order, are you the only fund typically? These days, people don’t need as much money even though there has been a frenzy of raising too much capital. You actually do not need as much money. When we’re talking about a $5 million Series A, are we talking about a $10 million Series A because there’s another investor involved? >>>