1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With David Blumberg of Blumberg Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I was actually reading last week’s Economist expose on superstars. Being a history buff, you may have already read this. Every time there is a major technological revolution, there’s this very disruptive period of 20 to 30 years when there’s a tremendous amount of startup activity and experimentation. Then, that period settles into an oligopoly.

Right now, we do have a bit of an oligopoly in tech. We have four or five companies that are in very dominant incumbent positions that are very difficult to compete with. The amount of data that Facebook has accumulated and the amount of precision with which they’re able to target ads is impossible to compete with. The only other people who have even a remote chance is Google because of their search and intent data capture. >>>

197th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Suresh Shanmugham, Saama Capital

Suresh Shanmugham, Managing Partner at Saama Capital, talks about the Indian venture capital eco-system, trends, exits, and his firm’s investment strategy.

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198th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With SC Moatti, Mighty Capital

SC Moatti, Managing Partner at Mighty Capital, discusses Whales, Dolphins and more. A wonderful conversation full of wisdom and pragmatism.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Don Hutchison (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: We see cap notes a lot in Silicon Valley, but if you go outside of Silicon Valley, people are still using equity vary aggressively. We, very often, see terribly diluted deals at very early stages.

Don Hutchison: That is the historic nature of equity investment. The issue you’re talking about is before notes became accepted here. It was a couple of years’ process. Earlier, it was all equity here as well. You didn’t go through as many rounds before jumping to an A. If you got seed, you went to an A. There might be some bridge but the bridge usually came from the incumbents. That usually was discounted notes to the A. The clearest way is to gain traction quickly.

Sramana Mitra: We’ve been saying this. Get traction before you raise money. >>>

199th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Deb Kemper, Golden Seeds

Deb Kemper is Managing Director and Chair of the Boston Forum at Golden Seeds, an Angel Group and Micro VC focused exclusively on women entrepreneurs.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With David Blumberg of Blumberg Capital (Part 3)

David Blumberg: I was speaking at a conference in Mexico recently. It was about transportation of the future. I’m not an expert in that, but I’ve got some theories. A lady from Ford Motors got up and said, “The future of transportation is green, recyclable, and sustainable.” Then a man from Delphi Auto Parts said, “The future of the automobile is connected.”

I got up and said, “I don’t know what the future of automobiles will be. I want to ask you. I have two choices. Is it a product that you buy, own, fill with gas, take to the garage to park and only comes in one shape and size during the lifetime of your ownership? Or is it a service? It comes to you when you call it? It comes as a motorcycle today, or Ferrari the next day? You don’t pay insurance. It’s all wrapped in a service.” >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Don Hutchison (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: There are 70,000 seed investments a year and only about 1,200 to 1,500 venture investments. There is a huge Series A gap that people have to deal with. How do you recommend the seed investors as well as the entrepreneurs who are raising seed money mitigate the gap?

Don Hutchison: You’re going to be in a very competitive process to gain that Series A. In all likelihood, a venture fund will be a normal part of your future if you’re the kind of company that you and I are talking about. You got to have the characteristics that will appeal to that audience, although there is still room for opportunities.

We’ve seen a great increase and interest in Blockchain, Bitcoin, and all types of cyber currency. That would be something where a >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With David Blumberg of Blumberg Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: The basic discipline that growth is important and so is profitability went away in the early part of this decade. It’s starting to correct itself again. What happens in the minds of venture capitalists so that what seems like basic arithmetic suddenly disappears?

David Blumberg: Over the last few years, we like to oversimplify by saying that venture capitalists have only two kinds of glands. We have a greed gland and a fear gland, and we oscillate between the two. We get into these cycles where greed overtakes. That was 1999 to 2000, and then coming into 2007, and then probably in 2013 to part of 2015. Sometime in 2015, it started switching to fear. We had stock market nervousness. We had geopolitical threats around the world. >>>