1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What are your thoughts on the Unions Square’s analysis of the unicorn phenomenon? How are you thinking about unicorns?

Rebecca Kaden: We want our companies to be as big as possible. What piece of it are you curious about?

Sramana Mitra: I’m sure you want all your companies to be as big as possible, but some very unhealthy models and practices have developed in the industry around trying to get as big as possible. For example, flushing companies with capital without figuring out a lot of the unit economics or fundamentals is a rampant practice right now in the industry. How do you view all that? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Swapna Gupta of Qualcomm Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: If you look at the 2018 deal flow, how many deals do you look at in a year? What are the trends in that deal flow?

Swapna Gupta: We have a three-member India team. Between us, we end up looking at 200 plus deals a year. There’s always a flavor of the season such as food delivery and social commerce. For trends in the last 6 to 9 months, we’ve seen a lot of healthcare and educational players because some of the infrastructure value has been taken care of, we’re able to build a famous organization. We’re also seeing a lot of momentum in the electric vehicle space surprisingly. US has Tesla, China has lots of other players, but India hasn’t seen any electric vehicle players. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The reason I’m asking is for a little bit of specifics. For example, one of the trends that I’m observing right now is there’s an increased emphasis on blending of business lending products of various kinds. This could be consumer lending. There’s a bunch of companies that are doing payday loans equivalent which is shark-infested water.

But they’re doing a very much cleaner and much more sophisticated humane job of that value proposition to ease the cash flow and working capital requirements of the low income workers. Then we’ve seen a lot of small business lending kinds of products come through. Various companies are taking various different spins on it. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Swapna Gupta of Qualcomm Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Technology consumer products and consumer electronics hasn’t really happened in India. It’s all been from elsewhere. China is very strong. Chinese products come into India fairly aggressively, right? The competitive landscape is very tricky. You’ve invested in about 25 companies.

Why don’t we talk about a few case studies of what you have invested in. Take us through the journey of when you saw these companies, what did they have? What caught your attention to convince you that this is something that you want to invest in? >>>

185th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Sarbvir Singh, WaterBridge Ventures

Sarbvir Singh, Managing Partner at WaterBridge Ventures, talks about the firm’s India-focused investment thesis.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (Part 2)

Rebecca Kaden: Another example is Modern Fertility. Modern Fertility has a female focus in home fertility. Traditionally, to get core information about your own fertility, you’d have to try to get pregnant for a period of time. You’d have to struggle. You’d go to a doctor. The doctor would prescribe you to a lab. You take these tests. By this point, it’s cost you regularly about $1500, a significant amount of time, and often emotional pain. It’s presented as a problem. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Swapna Gupta of Qualcomm Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Are you investing in media as well?

Swapna Gupta: Yes, but our perspective is slightly different. We’re looking at technology which is changing. Media is changing as well. It’s no more just about content. You’re talking about virtual reality. You’re talking about augmented reality. You’re talking about immersive experiences. What we’re playing closest to is digital content media versus traditional content media.

Sramana Mitra: Is e-commerce also something you’re still playing in? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square 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 Rebecca Kaden was recorded in February 2019.

Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures, discusses her firm’s capital efficient investment thesis and debates the pros and cons of blitz scaling.

Sramana Mitra: Union Square has been around for a while and has been very influential in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Tell us a bit about where you are today. What is the vision? What is the investment thesis at this point of the game? >>>