1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanev Suissa of SineWave Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: There are plenty of VCs focusing heavily on revenue numbers in the seed stage right now.

Yanev Suissa: I remember I qualified it as who I know and who I respect.

Sramana Mitra: I think I’d beg to differ there. There’re plenty of good VCs who are also focusing on revenue numbers at the seed stage partly because there is a lot of bootstrapping going on. People are doing so because they can and because they’re getting access to deals. They are making a lot of progress on their own getting into serious ARR numbers before coming into financing. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Eva Ho of Fika Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In the 1,500 deals that you’ve seen this year, is this a trend that there are a lot of archaic industries getting heavy infusion in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and you’re seeing entrepreneurs emerge in those categories.

Eva Ho: Absolutely. When we were working on Factual in 2007, we were pitching big data and APIs to the larger Fortune 500. A lot of them were scratching their heads and not really seeing its importance. We’re early in trying to deliver the message of systemizing your data, having data as a core component in determining product opportunities, and basically affecting every function that you have. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanev Suissa of SineWave Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: That was my conclusion when you prefaced the conversation that you are focusing on these government networks. You have a special unfair advantage in government relationships. I guess I’m a little bit thrown off by your comment that very niche funds is not where your bet is, which is a contrary to what you’re saying.

Yanev Suissa: Absolutely not. That would be 100% of a wrong impression. So let me explain who our strategic network is. The strategic network that we work with is an ecosystem of partners, investors, and people >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Eva Ho of Fika 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 Fika Ventures was recorded in December 2017. Eva Ho, General Partner at Fika Ventures, discusses their investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about the focus of the fund. How big is it? What are you focusing on? What size investments are you making?

Eva Ho: We launched Fika Ventures in February 2017. I came from another fund that I co-founded. This is my second fund. It’s a $40 million fund. It’s based in Los Angeles. We make investments in California and also other >>>

223rd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Brij Bhasin, Rebright Partners

Brij Bhasin, Principal and India Investment Lead at Rebright Partners, which is a Japanese Venture Capital firm, discusses their India strategy. The conversation encompasses broader trends in the Indian startup market.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanev Suissa of SineWave Ventures (Part 3)

Yanev Suissa: Obviously, we are financial investors and we do financial analysis. When I invest and decide on a company, what I’m looking at is not a ratio analysis of their past stock performance. I’m looking at the team, the market, their product, and their technology differentiation. It’s a much more on-the-ground advisory active type of investing. >>>

Roundtable Recap: January 25 – The Series A Gap is Widening

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rajeev Madhavan, Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures. Rajeev was first a highly successful serial entrepreneur, and brings to the VC game an entrepreneur’s view of the world. Rajeev highlighted the Series A gap in a big way.

CreepBeep
As for the pitches, Pavan Nandan from Hyderabad, India, pitched CreepBeep, an app for women to develop feedback about an area from a safety standpoint. Pavan wants funding to build the app, which would be impossible to get. I am also not convinced about the monetization potential of the idea.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vinny Lingham of NewTown Partners (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about strategic? What role do you see Naspers playing? Naspers has played a big role in exits in India. What is their position in Africa?

Vinny Lingham: Naspers is a really good investment house. They’re really good at later stage and not early stage.

Sramana Mitra: They’re good at exits. >>>