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- The Accelerator Conundrum
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Venture Capital
1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Suman Talukdar, Founder and Managing Partner at AiSprouts.VC (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: For the entrepreneurs who are listening, you cannot fit a square peg in a round hole. Just like when you were looking for the product-market fit, you are going to have to find an investor entrepreneur fit.
An investor who is looking for one type of exit is not going to invest in the other style. You have to bang against the wall if you are going after investors who are not interested in your style of investment opportunity. Keep that in mind.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Achler of MATH Venture Partners 2021 (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Is the fund strategy chasing unicorns? Are all your companies looking to become unicorns?
Mark Achler: No, I’m from Chicago. We are from the Midwest. I like to roll my sleeves and build real companies solving real problems. If they turn into a unicorn, then that’s great. The odds of that happening is slim. We are not building our portfolio predicated upon the expectation that every company turns into a unicorn.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Suman Talukdar, Founder and Managing Partner at AiSprouts.VC (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: You have a relatively small fund at the moment. What are your thoughts about chasing unicorns versus chasing the 2x to 5x companies?
Suman Talukdar: I’m relatively new on the investing side, but I have had experience working with venture-backed companies. All the work and effort pays off when things work. When they work, they tend to work amazingly well.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Achler of MATH Venture Partners 2021 (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: If you look at the public market, the tech stocks have done well. Their earnings have been good. It’s not like they are missing a lot of their numbers. Many are overshooting their numbers. It’s striking how well people have adjusted to buying technology without human interaction in person even in large sales.
Mark Achler: It’s interesting to see how that happens. One of the things that I’m working on is business continuity. There are a couple of concepts here.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Suman Talukdar, Founder and Managing Partner at AiSprouts.VC (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s dig down to AI and your thesis around AI a little bit. We do a series called Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence. It’s a popular series. We have been doing it for a long time. We bring entrepreneurs as well as people in large companies to talk about what they are doing and seeing.
We have a comprehensive thesis on AI. Here are some of the nuggets of what I have observed. I want to hear what you have to say on these conclusions that I have arrived at.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Achler of MATH Venture Partners 2021 (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about trends. What are you investing in? You can use examples and case studies. What are you seeing? What would you like to see? What trends are you seeing that you would like to invest in more?
Mark Achler: In preparation for this interview, I was thinking about this question and I’m approaching this in a slightly different way.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Suman Talukdar, Founder and Managing Partner at AiSprouts.VC (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: I love this kind of multicultural perspective. As you know, we are a global accelerator, so we work with entrepreneurs all around the world. When you started talking about AiSprouts, you said that you wanted some product validation.
Talk to us about what you mean by that. In that context, you also said that you developed some thesis on what makes a breakout company. Talk about what that thesis is and how you see the beginning of that in an early validation process.
>>>1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Achler of MATH Venture Partners 2021 (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 Mark Achler of MATH Venture Partners was recorded in January 2021.
Mark Achler, MATH Venture Partners, focuses on B2B selling as a key factor in startup success.
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