1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vivek Ladsariya of SineWave 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 Vivek Ladsariya was recorded in April 2018.

Vivek Ladsariya, Partner at SineWave Ventures, talks about the firm’s investment thesis, as well as trends in the industry.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as SineWave. What is your investment focus? How big is the fund? >>>

396th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Milos Sochor, Y Soft Ventures

Milos Sochor is Managing Partner at Y Soft Ventures, a firm in the Czech Republic. Fascinating conversation about how a small region is gradually becoming a powerhouse of innovation and entrepreneurship.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Do you invest only in the Boston area only?

Nilanjana Bhowmik: We invest up and down the East Coast. The big tech hubs on the side are Boston, New York, and surprisingly Toronto.

Sramana Mitra: Great. What are the highlights of your current portfolio? We are probably talking about Longworth as opposed to Converge.

Nilanjana Bhowmik: I’d say a good range of companies spanning all the way from infrastructure to the application layer. We just transacted a company in the crowdsourced application testing that we backed in 2009. This was called Applause. They created this whole concept of on-demand testing of software that truly leveraged cloud so that you need not have your own infrastructure of testers and professionals >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Last question, are you chasing unicorns?

Tim Guleri: No. That is something that I’m not a huge fan of. Ultimately, unicorn is an easy term for way late stage investors to say, “I’m going to invest in this company for this valuation.” I feel that that does a disservice to so much of the value creation that happens underneath that top of the pyramid. If you look at the classic and best returns that venture capital has posted, it doesn’t come from these unicorns that are few and far between. A lot of the outcomes happen in billion dollar and south outcomes. These are companies that have fundamentally strong businesses that are >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: One comment I want to highlight is the big difference I see on how the issue is being recorded or reported right now is people are actually naming names. That was not at all common earlier on. It makes a huge difference.

Patricia Nakache: That’s right. Even recently with the Ellen Pao trial, there were names listed there. There didn’t seem to be any repercussions. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the stage that you want to invest in. How do you define Series A? Here in Silicon Valley, what we are seeing is a fragmentation and segmentation of the seed to Series A ecosystem. My second company was funded by NEA as well. At that time, NEA was okay with doing these very early stage deals. They no longer are, because they’re so big. Your point about capital moving further and further upstream is very true.

However, in Silicon Valley, there is a lot of new capital that has come in. A lot of micro-VCs have come into the ecosystem. There is a ton of companies that are doing seed, post seed, pre-Series A, and small Series A. Even the larger funds are going into these $7 million to $10 million Series A. There is a class of funds that is coming in to fill the gap and investing the $1 million to $5 million Series A gap that was created. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You have already cited some of your highlights. Can you talk about other companies that were really interesting companies out of your portfolio that are really emblematic of how invest?

Tim Guleri: I talked about the three buckets. I’ll give you examples in all three. The first one is next generation infrastructure. These are drones and next-generation cellphones. All these next generation physical infrastructure devices have very unique needs for software which runs inside of them.

I gave you an example of Ben’s practice. That’s easier to introduce because I just say, “Look at your cellphone. The motion sensor for that was Ben’s >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of segment besides real estate tech, what else do you particularly like to invest in? Is healthcare It one of your sectors?

Patricia Nakache: Broadly, I spend a lot of my time in the consumer space. That can be anything from marketplaces to e-commerce or online services. In the marketplace arena, we’re an investor in Turo which is a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace. I’m an investor in Thread Up. It’s a marketplace for used clothing.

In the marketplace arena, I was also investor in Care.com. Another investment theme is she economy which is recognizing the important role of >>>