1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Sandeep Sardana, BluePointe Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So, is vertical AI your primary investment thesis?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Sandeep Sardana, BluePointe Ventures (Part 1)

Sandeep Sardana, Founder and General Partner at BluePointe Ventures, discusses his firm’s vertical AI investment thesis.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Let me ask you an interesting question. We have companies like this in our portfolio—really interesting, exciting companies. There is a question these companies have to answer: which go-to-market strategy, which business model do they go with? Do they sell software to clients, or do they sell services to end customers? Because in many cases, they could do either.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let me ask you a broader trend question based on this case study you just took us through, which is really exciting and interesting. There is a lot of talk right now in the industry about full vertical AI solutions in various industry spaces. How do you see that playing out?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take a few of your investments through Geek Ventures that fit into these three buckets of your investment thesis, and do some case studies. As you talk about them, explain how they found you or how you found them, and what made you decide to write the check.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I want to understand how you find companies. You talked about five unicorns that you invested in as an angel investor, two of which we’ve had here in our Entrepreneur Journey series — People.ai and PandaDoc. I know those companies well. How did they come to you, or how did you find them?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: JP Persico, shuckerVC (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What size checks do you write at pre-seed and seed, and what proof points do you look for?

JP Persico: At pre-seed, we focus more on the technology and the team. Who’s the team? Is there a single CEO or co-founders? What industry are they targeting? What kind of software are they building? We look for early indicators of product-market fit, though not full product-market fit yet.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: JP Persico, shuckerVC (Part 1)

Jean-Philippe ‘JP’ Persico, Cofounder and Managing Partner at shuckerVC, discusses his firm’s investment thesis.