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 >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge (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 Nilanjana Bhowmik was recorded in March 2018.

Nilanjana Bhowmik, Co-Founder and General Partner at Converge, a new fund started after serving as the long-time General Partner at Longworth Capital. Their focus is B-to-B tech on the East Coast.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get to know you and your venture capital associations. What is your background. Let’s help our audience of entrepreneurs get to know you. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: In a lot of cases, businesses that are selling into the enterprise have the structure of a big deal. When you have larger ASPs, often, it is easier to build companies for less money because the cash flows differently.

Tim Guleri: When I was a CEO, I used to say to my sales guys and my company in general that revenues are really good deodorants. I don’t care what shape or size you bring me revenue in. I really encourage my portfolio companies saying that venture capital is interesting just to stabilize your business, but you can’t depend on that. You have to ultimately get revenues from customers. That’s what it’s all about.

Sramana Mitra: What about geography? You started by saying that you’re on the Board of a company that is an Indian-market >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of stage, you said you do seed, Series A, and Series B, your sweet spot being Series A. What is your definition of Series A? What do you like to see if you’re ready to do a Series A investment? What do you like to see in the project?

Patricia Nakache: Ideally, we would want to see some product-market fit. It might just be an initial target market. The product roadmap might leave room for a lot of evolution. We, at least, want to see some initial product-market fit. There’s this rule of thumb that to get Series A funding, you need to be a million dollars in ARR. It is true that that could be meaningful for us, but that’s a bit of a blunt instrument. We do take things like quality >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Double-click for us on the stage question. You like to be the first institutional money in. What do you like to see? Let’s say you are doing a Series A deal. What do you like to see in it in terms of metrics and validation? What are the requirements to qualify for your definition of a Series A? Definitions are varying greatly these days.

Tim Guleri: It’s a very good question and a tough one to answer. I’ll try to frame it for you. If you look at our last fund, almost a third were seed investments. These are anything less than $2 million in initial check. It could be a $500,000 check or a $2 million check. What we call seed and what we look for are the very early companies with a team that is doing very interesting work, and if you give them some initial help and guidance, then we can see a way to a very large company. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures (Part 2)

Patricia Nakache: Now there’s more of this bifurcation in the market of the haves and the have nots. We read it on the paper. We read on TechCrunch a lot about the haves. There’s probably a larger pool of companies that are having a harder time raising money probably because people have a bit of a hangover from the peak two or three years ago where they probably invested too quickly.

Right now, we’re in a period that is relatively healthy for entrepreneurs and for venture capitalists. There’s a lot of capital out there. I would say relative to 19 years ago when I started in the industry, it is far more competitive for venture capitalists to invest in good opportunities. I would say that is requires a lot more specialization than it did in the past where venture capitalists have had to go a lot deeper to build their credibility in >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri of Sierra 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 Tim Guleri was recorded in April 2018.

Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures, discusses at length his firm’s investment thesis, unique relationships with CIOs, and some of the industry trends he sees.

Sramana Mitra: We should start with you introducing yourself as well as Sierra to our audience. What is your investing focus today? How big is the fund? What are the things that you want to position the fund as that our audience should know about? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Patricia Nakache of Trinity 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 Patricia Nakache was recorded in March 2018.

Patricia Nakache, General Partner at Trinity Ventures, discusses the firm’s investment thesis and some issues encountered by women in technology.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Trinity. Tell us about the fund and what you guys have been doing. >>>