1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Borchardt of Caerus Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I’ll tell you where I am a little bit uncomfortable with what you’re saying. I don’t feel a token angle of it. Your point is well-taken that somebody with a proven business model is a more interesting scenario than a concept financing or concept ICO. Why do I want tokens in this ecosystem and this exchange?

There are certain businesses that are very token-friendly businesses where the tokens will naturally float around and change hands. There are certain businesses that have that characteristic. There are others that don’t have that characteristic which in my opinion should not be doing ICOs. In this case, I’m struggling to understand the token angle.

Greg Borchardt: There are two separate tokens that the company is releasing. I don’t work for the company. I’m an investor. I’m not on the >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Borchardt of Caerus Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the go-to market strategy for this company?

Greg Borchardt: There are two sides of the business. They started off in the medical device space. They created a consumer product that we help them down the supply chain to develop the components for the product and ship it over to the US. They initially launched the product in the United States. Initially, they started with online-only.

We felt that it made the most sense to get feedback from the early adapters and be able to iterate from generation one to a generation two product, based on the early feedback we were getting from the heavy users. Then they subsequently launched the product at major retailers in the US including Best Buy and Target as well as a few overseas markets. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Wilson of Artiman Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about some of your portfolio highlights. What are you really proud of having invested in? As you choose the ones to talk about, specifically point out when you saw them, in what state did you see them, and what is it about them that attracted you?

Tim Wilson: I’ll start with a company that I invested in in 2004. It’s called InvenSense. The founder came in with two other co-founders. His model and idea was to build a motion sensor. I still remember his words. He said, “Here is the size of motion sensors today and I’m going to put one in every smartphone in the world.”

He didn’t have a product. He had a concept. He had a track record. He was a manufacturing whiz. He knows how to build things. We looked at him >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Borchardt of Caerus Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s then talk about the investment thesis. This is your second fund. You’ve already used this investment thesis and invested your first fund in a bunch of companies. If you could take us through a few examples that illustrates how you think about your investment thesis and how the companies you’ve invested in fit with that investment thesis, that would probably be the best starting point to understand your unique investment thesis.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Wilson of Artiman Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What are you seeing in your deal flow? We’ll come to what you’ve invested in in a moment. You’ve been in this business for a long time. Let’s look at the 2017 deals that has approached you for investment. What are the trend lines that you see in there? What are you seeing?

Tim Wilson: I see several different trends. One is more money is being invested at higher valuations prior to reducing significant risks. I’ve now done this for over 16 years. I’ve seen the ebbs and flows. Early stage venture capital requires a certain amount of ownership in order to work in the end. I’ve seen valuations creep up and up to the point where we walked away from deals not because they’re not good deals. We don’t think they’re going to make the metrics work for early stage ventures. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Borchardt of Caerus 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 Greg Borchardt of Caerus Ventures was recorded in February 2018. 

Greg Borchardt is Co-founder and Managing Partner at Caerus Ventures, a firm that has a focus on connected hardware. It’s an interesting and differentiated investment thesis that is worth listening to, especially for IoT entrepreneurs.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Caerus Ventures. What is your sweet spot? What is the size of the fund? What kind of investments do you like to make? What’s the focus? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Wilson of Artiman 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 Tim Wilson of Artiman Ventures was recorded in February 2018. 

Tim Wilson, Partner at Artiman Ventures, has been in the venture business for a long time, and refreshingly has the skill and the confidence to do very complex technology deals that are relatively early.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Artiman Ventures. Let’s get to know one another. Let’s get you introduced to our audience. What is the fund’s focus? What kind of deals do you like to make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much total money did the company raise? How much revenue did they do?

Gaurav Jain: They raised sub-$10 million. It’s relatively small for a food delivery. Their numbers were not that far off from some of these bigger companies. A big reason for that was because they were based in Winnipeg where the cost structure is phenomenally different. They had 200 employees.

Sramana Mitra: It’s also a matter of culture and philosophy. Part of the problem we have created in this industry is this burn lots of capital and chase hyper growth at all cost and make yourself unsustainable for the

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