1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bill Bice of Verge Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take SaaS for a moment. If you were to look at a SaaS company, what would you look for? Would you look for MRR metrics?

Would you look for just a proof, just a minimum viable product? What is your comfort zone to get into a company?

Bill Bice: I’m often working with an entrepreneur at the earliest stages. I’m not likely to be interested in investing until they have hit a standard $10,000 in MRR. A big part of my incentive and what I love to do is to help entrepreneurs get to that point.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bill Bice of Verge Fund (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Before we get into that, let’s get the fund specifics. How big is your fund? What is your preferred investment criteria.

Bill Bice: We’re an early-stage fund. My partner was the first VC in the state of New Mexico. He really took a different approach in building the firm. He brought together a partnership of entrepreneurs that have all built companies and have had successful exits.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bill Bice of Verge Fund (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 Bill Bice was recorded in April 2019.

Bill Bice, Partner at Verge Fund, discusses New Mexico’s startup ecosystem and his fund’s activities in that region.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by getting acquainted and also introducing you to our audience. Let’s learn about Verge Fund. Tell us about yourself. What is your investment thesis? What are the preferences? How big is the fund?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Coming back to the more mundane topic of enterprise technology which is what everybody wants to invest in; by and large, in the venture world, what is your analysis? What kind of stuff do you see as interesting and exciting?

Hemant Mohapatra: Coming into India, I don’t know how deep the enterprise is. It is never going to be as deep as the US, at least, for a few years now. But what is interesting is the ambition of the best founders and enterprises here is no less than the ambitions of the best founders and enterprises in the US.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is your current analysis of the big problems in India? In the same vein that your colleagues went and sought out the Oyo team or founder, what are some problems out there that you are looking for solutions to or teams that are solving these problems?

Hemant Mohapatra: There are three things that I, personally, find really exciting. One is FinTech. India is more advanced than most other countries. Maybe China’s the only other talent that comes to mind. These have trended in the last couple of years.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like when a situation like that arises, your global fund or Silicon Valley fund is bringing in the capital to match the round. Anyway, we don’t need to belabor the point. You were going to talk about Udaan.

Hemant Mohapatra: It’s a very India-centric problem. Commerce in India has always been depended a lot on one-on-one relationships and offline chanels. They’ll call somebody up and somebody will say, “I’ll give you this at this rate. I will negotiate. I’ll deliver here. You come there to pick it up.”

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures (Part 3)

Hemant Mohapatra: We invested $60,000 in Oyo and then worked with the founder and built up a relationship. I saw them through multiple fundraising. They have raised more than a billion dollars now from the likes of SoftBank.

We have stayed together with the founder on not just capturing India’s opportunity but also expanding into China, Japan, UK, and now the US. It’s been a five-year journey.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So, it’s a $175 million fund. What stage? Is there a comfort zone in terms of investing?

Hemant Mohapatra: We come in early. We love series A and seed. Those are the two stages that are the most common. Last year, half of our investments were seed. Our check sizes range from $1 million to $3 million for a seed and all the way to $10 million for a very compelling team that has an idea.