1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ankit Jain of Gradient Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Double-click down for me on your definition of early stage. You said check size is from $1 million to $10 million. What is your definition of early stage? What does an AI startup need to show to be able to convince you that is has enough validation that there is something there?

Ankit Jain: That’s a very interesting question. I wish I had a clear answer of, “These are the things that you need to convince any investor that you are fundable.” Every investor has his view on this. We have a few things that we look for. They change by the stage of the company. At the seed stage, we’re looking for a strong core team that we think can execute in a given market, what people would refer to as >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ankit Jain of Gradient 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 Ankit Jain was recorded in May 2018.

Ankit Jain is Founding Partner at Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI venture fund.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us about yourself a bit and introduce us to Gradient Ventures. What is the focus of the fund? How big is the fund?

Ankit Jain: Gradient Ventures is Google’s AI-focused early-stage venture fund. We invest $1 million to $10 million in companies that >>>

419th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ray Chan, K5 Ventures

Ray Chan, Managing Director at K5 Ventures and Tech Coast Angels, shares his views on the segments his firms invest in.

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418th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Shuly Galili, UpWest Labs

Shuly Galili, Founding Partner, UpWest Labs, talks to us about pre-seed and seed investments in the Israel – Silicon Valley corridor.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Utsav Somani of AngelList India (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in your structure that is worth discussing that I have not discussed with you yet?

Utsav Somani: I think you’ve pretty much covered everything. There are some really good companies coming out of India.

Sramana Mitra: Can you talk about them?

Utsav Somani: It’s too early to be disclosing some names. I can talk about the first one which is a middleware company that’s doing Blockchain-based API for companies to quickly deploy Blockchain government systems in

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419th Roundtable Recording on October 17, 2018: With Ray Chan, K5 Ventures

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Roundtable Recap: October 17 – Cool Companies, Exciting Opportunities

During this week’s roundtable, we had as a guest Ray Chan, Managing Director at K5 Ventures and Tech Coast Angels shared his views on the segments his firms invest in.

Locol
As for pitching, we had Sriniva Nag Mandali from Hyderabad, India, pitched Locol, a flexible fleet access solution for tour operators and municipal governments a la Uber, but in a B-to-B context. Very cool!

ViaMaan
Next, Rahul Sharma from Bangalore, India, pitched ViaMaan, an aerial cargo delivery solution. Also very cool.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Utsav Somani of AngelList India (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to double-click down on a bunch of points you made. You said the angel networks like Mumbai Angels work like glorified VC funds versus AngelList. Elaborate and contrast the fee structures.

Utsav Somani: Everyone is structured in a different way. They help different people. The offline angel networks are places where people like to meet companies and see them pitch in person. They take a longer decision cycle. At AngelList syndicates, we enable people to write lower check sizes, but we pool capital and people make faster decisions. Every coin has two sides.

Sramana Mitra: What about the fee structure though? >>>