1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby of Supernode Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What do you think of this particular phenomenon? We’re in the beginning of 2018. Lots of stuff have already been built. Nowadays, there aren’t so many wide open opportunities with multi-billion TAM’s but there are many niche opportunities.

Some of these businesses need to be built for very small amounts of capital – $1 million to $2 million and sold for $10 million. Maybe even smaller investments – $500,000 and then sell for $5 million. Do you have appetite for these kinds of investments?

Laurel Touby: As long as the founder is not trying to create a lifestyle business that they want to hold on to forever and they’re >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel of ff Venture Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: That is a very reasonable strategy for Indiegogo. You mentioned that Indiegogo’s equity crowdfunding platform has been successful. What are the trends? What kind of ventures are gaining traction in the equity funding world of Indiegogo?

John Frankel: A lot of the things they’ve been going for are what you might consider lower beta type of projects. These are ones that may not be shooting hundred times returns but can really do well. Maybe less of the kinds of things that the venture capitalists back. We’re in the early days. It’s too early to say that crowdfunding is a niche. It’s somewhere between the first and second inning with regards to the opportunities that crowdfunding brings. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It also gives you a flavor of how good a product it is. Is the product really meeting the needs of the customers? I think churn is a very good indicator of that.

Mackey Craven: Coming back again, it really doesn’t have to do with revenue scale. It has to do with validating that repeatable value proposition. Aside from conversations with customers, that quantitative metric often speaks strongly about that point.

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to switch the question to another quantitative myth that comes up all the time in early stage financing, which is TAM. Let me phrase the question slightly differently. At the beginning of 2018, lots of stuff have already been built. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby of Supernode Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What have you invested in? Give us an example or two and tell us why you chose to invest in those.

Laurel Touby: We are about to close the first close of our fund. We’re now looking at investment for that fund. In my angel investing, you can see some indicators of some  companies that I invested in personally that have been doing really well. One of them is a company called AppBoy which is in marketing tech. I did it five years ago. It wasn’t quite as crowded as it is today.

It has changed its name to Braze. It’s basically software to help marketers reach out to their community via the app. It’s managing your community of users better through your app. It’s analytics. It started out as doing one or two things. Another one is >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel of ff Venture Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s look at 2017. This is our last roundtable. We are about to close the year off. You have, I imagine, seen thousands of deals this year. What are the trends in your deal flow?

John Frankel: We’ve been leaning heavily into AI, cyber security, robotics, FinTech. We’re seeing a ton of opportunities in those spaces. The reality is, AI isn’t a space. It’s a toolset. You’re going to see AI embedded in almost everything over time just the way mobile or SaaS is when you look at enterprise. With regard to other trends, there’s a lot of noise, excitement, and manic behavior around Blockchain and ICOs. We’re looking at it and studying it. It’s not necessarily an area that we think institutional capital should be playing today. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture 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 Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture Partners was recorded in January 2018. 

Mackey Craven, Partner at OpenView Venture Partners, discusses what Series A VCs are looking for in the realm of software investments. We talk at length about the Series A gap from the perspective of a fund that focuses on Series A and beyond.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. Let’s get to know OpenView. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you like to make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby of Supernode 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 Laurel Touby of Supernode Ventures was recorded in January 2018. 

Laurel Touby, Managing Partner at Supernode Ventures, and a former entrepreneur and avid angel investor, has now launched her new institutional pre-seed fund.

Sramana Mitra: I’m surprised our paths haven’t crossed until now. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Cindy Padnos of Illuminate Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: One of my observations is lots of stuff have already been built. Nowadays, there aren’t so many wide open opportunities, especially in B2B that you can consistently build billion-dollar companies. There are many niche opportunities.

Some of these businesses need to be built for very small amounts of capital – $1 million to $2 million and then sold for $10 million to $15 million. Maybe even smaller – $250,000 to $500,000 and then sell for $5 million to $10 million. Do you have appetite for these kinds of investments? What is your analysis of this dynamic in the industry? >>>