Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum On The Startups Investors Invest In

To help entrepreneurs to learn which qualities VCs and seed investors are looking for in the startups they will invest in, we have asked a variety of investors to share their specific perspectives as part of our Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum. Naturally, different investors have different interests. As we teach within our virtual accelerator, an entrepreneurs seeking funding needs to figure out who are the best matches for the type and stage of their business. My interviews with the following investors share a range of options available for different sorts of startups that are looking for funding.

Vinny Lingham, Co-founder and CEO, Civic.com, and Managing Partner of Newtown Partners, discusses his investment thesis in B-to-C seed ventures. We also discuss the role ICOs are playing in filling the gaps in certain seed-stage ventures.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanev Suissa of SineWave Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Which is why I’m probing you on this topic.

Yanev Suissa: My experience with NEA is that they are a great investor at the seed stage. There’s typically a partner or a principal level person who sponsors the seed stage deal. That partner or principal-level person will still be active. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanev Suissa 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 Yanev Suissa was recorded in October 2017.

Yanev Suissa is General Partner at SineWave Ventures out of Washington DC and Silicon Valley. The firm invests alongside some major firms like Andreessen Horowitz and NEA. Yanev talks about how they invest, and also the trends he sees.

Sramana Mitra: So tell us about SineWave Ventures. What is the focus of your firm? How big is the fund? What size investments do you make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vinny Lingham of NewTown Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Have you invested in any of these ICO-based or token-based ventures?

Vinny Lingham: Yes, I’m going to do another one called Augmentors. It’s a gaming product. They have a really good token called Databits, which they’ve spun out. It’s basically an augmented reality game. It’s pretty fascinating.

Sramana Mitra: What is your estimate of the capital requirements of token-based ventures like that? I’ve been talking to a few people who are looking at that. One of the issues for that, as early stage investors, is this 

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vinny Lingham of NewTown Partners (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 Vinny Lingham was recorded in November 2017.

Vinny Lingham, Co-founder and CEO, Civic.com, and Managing Partner of Newtown Partners, discusses his investment thesis in B-to-C seed ventures. We also discuss the role ICOs are playing in filling the gaps in certain seed-stage ventures.

Sramana Mitra: So you’ve hadn’t an interesting entrepreneur journey. Tell us about Gyft. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You’ve been on all sides of the table for a long time. When an entrepreneur is trying to figure out whom to work with and let’s say they have the luxury. A lot of entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of choice. But once they’ve been able to figure a few things out, they actually do have some luxury of choice. At the end of the day, there is too much money chasing too few really great deals. That is the structure of the industry. What is your advice to entrepreneurs on how to select whom to work with?

Warren Weiss: The best time to raise money is when you don’t need money. The traditional way to get to a venture is to get >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohit Gulati of ITI Growth Ventures (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: That’s not a common practice in the US by the way. That is a practice that is more unique to India. Because of the proliferation of micro-VCs , people are starting to think. The other side of the equation of this unicorn mania is that the larger funds are doing very large series C’s and series D’s.

Now the concept of seed-stage, preeseed funds exiting into series C or series D is happening more or at least, coming to the surface. In India, it’s been happening for a while. >>>

382nd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Venture Partners

Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, is one of the early employees at Oracle, as well as a co-founder of Siebel Systems. He is working on a book on The Traction Gap framework that his firm uses in its venture capital practice.

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