1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amir Banifatemi of K5 Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You kind of need a tribe of people who think the same way. If you want to work on interesting problems, but necessarily unicorn ideas, then you need other people around in the ecosystem who think like that instead of trying to force feed these kinds of ventures into the more traditional venture world, which operates in a very different way.

Between the 70,000 odd seed investments and about 1,200 series A investments, there is a huge series A gap that gets created. Unless you surround yourself with like-minded investors, it will be very difficult to mitigate the Series A gap, right? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amir Banifatemi of K5 Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Well, I think what you’re seeing around the world is a lot of concept arbitrage; concepts that have been tried in different places are being applied to different markets. 

Then you have big categories like cyber security that have been very active fund draws for a very long time, so there’re a very large number of cyber security companies out there. AI is the new attraction area for investors. So now, there aren’t that many wide open opportunities, so there are several niche opportunities. I’m very much in favor of niche opportunities. You can build very nice businesses for small amounts of capital around these niche opportunities, and I think those are very interesting opportunities. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amir Banifatemi of K5 Ventures (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Amir Banifatemi was recorded in October 2017.

Amir Banifatemi is the Founder and Managing Partner of K5 Ventures, a fund focused on pre-seed, seed, post-seed, and early-stage investments from Southern California. Amir is also a Board Member and former President of Tech Coast Angels, a group of 340 angel investors from Southern California.

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What Are Traditional VCs Looking For With Scott Sandell, NEA

Traditional VCs now each have very large funds. They need to invest large chunks of money. NEA’s last fund is over $3 billion. They LOVE to invest in Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later scenarios.

Here, you can hear the perspective of Scott Sandell, Managing General Partner at NEA, on all that and more:

Come talk to me to brainstorm, strategize, weigh your funding options.

What are E-commerce VCs Looking for with Gus Tai of Trinity Ventures

E-commerce has been around ever since Amazon came into the market in the mid-nineties. What has changed and are there still opportunities in building e-commerce ventures?

Here, you can hear the perspective of Gus Tai of Trinity Ventures on all that and more:

Come talk to me to brainstorm, strategize, weigh your funding options.

VCs Share Views of the Indian Startup Scene in Podcasts

Entrepreneurs working out of India, or with an interest in India, can hear from some key players about their views of the Indian startup scene, India’s venture capital ecosystem and the India – US startup corridor. The following VC investors share their perspectives, investment strategies, and point to emerging trends in 30-minute podcast interviews.

Sandeep Singhal, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners – This firm is a key player in the India-US startup corridor. The discussion spans trends in SaaS, Open Source, and the Indian venture capital market in general. If you are working in the technology startup sector with an interest in India, this is a discussion worth listening to.

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6 Women Investors Discuss Ventures They Find Interesting in Podcasts

As the numbers of women who are VCs and Angel Investors continue to grow, the startup ecosystem continues to evolve. Will a female perspective be an asset to your startup? Might the influence and support of a strong woman lead your venture to success? Have a listen to the following 30-minute podcast interviews with a variety of Angels and venture capitalists to learn if your business might be of interest to them.

Ann Winblad, Co-founder, Hummer Winblad – Ann is one of the most successful women VCs in our industry, and as I mentioned in my introduction, I have never heard her whining about bias against women. One of the most encouraging things she discussed today is how her firm is sourcing interesting ventures from all over the world, not just Silicon Valley. Mulesoft, one of their hot portfolio companies, had its CEO based in Malta, originally!

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What are Indian VCs Looking For with Naren Gupta, Nexus Ventures

We continue our deep dive into the current seed investment eco-system and talking to our investor friends about what they’re looking for.

Here, you can hear the perspective of Naren Gupta of Nexus Venture Partners on Indian startups:

Come talk to me to brainstorm, strategize, weigh your funding options.