Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Seed Rounds with Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures

If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Then, start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today, I introduce you to Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures.

Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Partner at Illuminate Ventures, discusses a topic that we’ve been highlighting recently: the need for multiple seed rounds as a way to bridge the Series A gap. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Illuminate Ventures. What is the focus of the firm? How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make?

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517th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ken Elefant, Sorenson Ventures

Ken Elefant, Partner and Co-founder at Sorenson Ventures, talks about trends and his investment thesis.

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Roundtable Recap: July 9 – Debt Financing Options for Bootstrapped Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Joe Silver, CFO at Lighter Capital. Joe discussed his firm’s debt-financing model for startups.

Vision Phone
As for entrepreneur pitches, this week we had Sourav Sanyal from Bangalore, India, pitching Vision Phone, a lower cost, feature-rich smartphone for the Indian market.

KawemiValley
Next, Adetola Asa from Ile-Ife, Nigeria, pitched KawemiValley, a marketplace for coaches and trainers and leaerners who seek their help.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M is equity free, offers an AI Mentor available 24/7 in 57 languages, and offers a compelling alternative to Y Combinator and other equity accelerators.

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond.

Explore 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Courses: Bootstrapping | Financing | Domain Knowledge | Methodology | Regional Case Studies | Artificial Intelligence | Ideation

Learn about the Best Online Mentoring Program for Startups

Explore Related Topics:

• Top Online Accelerator for Startups
• Top Accelerator for Part-Time Founders
• Top Virtual Incubator for Startups
• Best Online Entrepreneurship Program for Global Founders
• Best Online Startup Incubation Program for Bootstrapped Founders
• 1Mby1M Online Mentoring Catalog
• New Year’s Resolution – Bootstrap a Startup with a Paycheck, Find a Good Mentor

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Roundtable Recap: March 19 – Trends in Food Related Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Elly Truesdell, Partner at Almanac Insights, a fund focused on food related investments. Fascinating conversation!

MarketKoin

As for entrepreneur pitches, we started with Nikolaj Vestorp from Thisted, Denmark, pitching MarketKoin, a crypto exchange for Indonesia.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Do you invest only in the Boston area only?

Nilanjana Bhowmik: We invest up and down the East Coast. The big tech hubs on the side are Boston, New York, and surprisingly Toronto.

Sramana Mitra: Great. What are the highlights of your current portfolio? We are probably talking about Longworth as opposed to Converge.

Nilanjana Bhowmik: I’d say a good range of companies spanning all the way from infrastructure to the application layer. We just transacted a company in the crowdsourced application testing that we backed in 2009. This was called Applause. They created this whole concept of on-demand testing of software that truly leveraged cloud so that you need not have your own infrastructure of testers and professionals >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: One comment I want to highlight is the big difference I see on how the issue is being recorded or reported right now is people are actually naming names. That was not at all common earlier on. It makes a huge difference.

Patricia Nakache: That’s right. Even recently with the Ellen Pao trial, there were names listed there. There didn’t seem to be any repercussions. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the stage that you want to invest in. How do you define Series A? Here in Silicon Valley, what we are seeing is a fragmentation and segmentation of the seed to Series A ecosystem. My second company was funded by NEA as well. At that time, NEA was okay with doing these very early stage deals. They no longer are, because they’re so big. Your point about capital moving further and further upstream is very true.

However, in Silicon Valley, there is a lot of new capital that has come in. A lot of micro-VCs have come into the ecosystem. There is a ton of companies that are doing seed, post seed, pre-Series A, and small Series A. Even the larger funds are going into these $7 million to $10 million Series A. There is a class of funds that is coming in to fill the gap and investing the $1 million to $5 million Series A gap that was created. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of segment besides real estate tech, what else do you particularly like to invest in? Is healthcare It one of your sectors?

Patricia Nakache: Broadly, I spend a lot of my time in the consumer space. That can be anything from marketplaces to e-commerce or online services. In the marketplace arena, we’re an investor in Turo which is a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace. I’m an investor in Thread Up. It’s a marketplace for used clothing.

In the marketplace arena, I was also investor in Care.com. Another investment theme is she economy which is recognizing the important role of >>>