1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nitin Rai of Elevate Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What about industry trends?

Nitin Rai: We see a very diverse group of entrepreneurs. Between 40% and 60% are technology. On the technology side, we see SaaS, VR/AR, IoT. We see a fair amount of medical device type of companies. We see apparel. We see sports.

Sramana Mitra: Let me double-click down. We are exclusively focused on IT and IT-enabled services. I’m going to double-click down on your activity in that sector. I have a few questions based on what you said. What are you seeing in AR/VR? Are these content deals? Are these equipment deals?

Nitin Rai: Most of them have been software deals. I can’t disclose the details yet because the investment is not closed, but it’s actually >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that I should have asked you?

Corey Schmid: I’m curious to hear your thoughts a bit on the correction going on in the market now.

Sramana Mitra: It’s way overdue.

Corey Schmid: It is way overdue. It’s not a crash. I think it’s a correction, and it’s happening. One thing that we tend to want to lean in is how do you weather that storm. If we’re investing at seed or even Series A, how do these companies ensure that they’re able to get to that next stage? Funding is moving upstream.    >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rajul Garg of Leo 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 Rajul Garg of Leo Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Rajul Garg, Head of Investments at Leo Capital, discusses the Indian startup eco-system and his fund’s investment focus.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us about your investment focus. How big is the fund? What sized investment do you make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nitin Rai of Elevate 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 Nitin Rai of Elevate Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Nitin Rai, Managing Director at Elevate Capital, made a compelling case for investing in niche businesses with the upfront goal of scoring early exits. Excellent discussion!

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your seed-stage investment activities. Let’s get to know you and get you introduced into our community.

Nitin Rai: I started out as an entrepreneur back in the 80’s in Silicon Valley. I moved to Oregon in the late 80’s. I started a company >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: If you can close deals of that size, yes. What is your value proposition in those scenarios? Let’s say your specialty is digital health. You have a company that comes to you with product market fit. Where are your relationships?

Corey Schmid: We do have strong strategic and corporate relationships based on our own backgrounds. Over time as we work with these companies, we’ve been able to open up a lot of the doors for customers and advisors. Where I think we can add the most value is in that syndication process. You know this well. Your investors are part of that family. You’re getting married and it’s imperative that you’re building a really good team for the long haul. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You emphasized geography greatly. Pacific Northwest is the sweet spot of the fund. You don’t invest outside?

Corey Schmid: We do. We call it the Mountain West. One of our newest deals is out of Phoenix. They’re in the no-password security space. Majority of our deals are in Oregon and Seattle. We have five or six investments in the Bay Area. We have a deep network there based on our syndicate partners and investors that come on in later rounds.

We have two in Boulder. We’re seeing talent in those regions. What’s lagging is sophisticated capital to help grow those businesses. The Bay Area is chock full of successful funds. We’re identifying opportunities primarily outside of the Bay Area. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Borchardt of Caerus Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to ask you a slightly different question. Given what you are doing, it sounds like there must be tons and tons of niche use cases out there of your model. We’re in 2018. There’s a ton of stuff that have already been built. Some of these use cases are not necessarily all billion-dollar TAM use cases.

Some of these are smaller niche opportunities. You can build great businesses with one or two million dollars and these probably can be good acquisitions for other larger companies for $10 million to $15 million. In some cases, slightly larger or smaller. You could be investing $5 million and selling for $25 million. You could be investing $250,000 to $500,000 and selling for $5 million to $10 million. Is that something that’s interesting to you?

Greg Borchardt: My non-answer is it depends. We look for deals where we can be happy without needing a multi-billion IPO. For example, if we >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this series. The following interview with Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures was recorded in February 2018.

Corey Schmid is General Partner at Seven Peak Ventures, a firm with a focus on the Pacific Northwest.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a little bit about yourself and Seven Peaks. Let’s get to know the fund. What size is the fund? What’s your investment thesis?

Corey Schmid: I’m a General Partner with Seven Peaks Ventures. We are located in Oregon. We are an early stage venture capital >>>