1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines of Webb Investment Network (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 Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines of Webb Investment Network was recorded in March 2018.

Jeremy Schneider and Jonathan Pines, both Directors at the Webb Investment Network, discuss their firm’s investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: One of you take the lead in introducing the Webb Investment Network. I know you have a very particular model. I’ve known Maynard Webb for a long time actually. Tell us about the program. >>>

10 Seed Investors Discuss Startups in Their Portfolios via the Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum

During my many conversations with seed investors, I’ve asked everyone to talk about their current investment portfolios to help inform early-stage entrepreneurs interested in financing. Here are ten investors who generously share details on what they have invested in, the notable exits, and how they decide which startups to invest in.

Mackey Craven, Partner at OpenView Venture Partners, discusses what Series A VCs are looking for in the realm of software investments. We talk at length about the Series A gap from the perspective of a fund that focuses on Series A and beyond.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanai Oron of Vertex Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: That’s exactly where my question comes from. We are in 2018. There is a lot of stuff that has already been built in all different areas of technology. Right now, there are not as many billion-dollar opportunities, but there are many opportunities that are in that $200 million TAM range.

In a way, there are ways to make money off these opportunities. You build it up to a point and you then flip it a little bit earlier. You can do 3x on these deals. My question comes from exactly that observation. Some of the funds that we are talking to are making that call. Part of the issue also is that there are 700 seed funds in the industry. If everybody is chasing unicorns, there’s not enough of those. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yipeng Zhao of Embark Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What do you think of the Series A gap? There are hundred thousand seed investments and 1,200 to 1,500 venture investments. How do you process that?

Yipeng Zhao: Seed and Series A is always a hard gap. By nature of the business, you will always say most companies die after seed. I don’t think that’s because of the structure of the business. It’s just because of the nature of the business.

As I said, venture startup is a high-risk business. Most of the time, companies die quickly. The gap between seed and Series A is not really an issue. Seed is more of a testing phase. Series A is more serious. If a company is not fundable at Series A, there have to be some consequences. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rob Schultz of Serra Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I have two questions to narrow down on your style of investment. First and foremost, it sounds like you invest across multiple sectors. You do B2B SaaS and you do medical. Do you also do B2C?

Rob Schultz: No. We tend to stay away from B2C opportunities. We don’t understand it that well. They tend to be more capital intensive to do well. It’s not to say that we wouldn’t. We look for differentiation. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanai Oron of Vertex Ventures (Part 4)

Yanai Oron: There are some very interesting programs in Israel of large corporates creating commercialization programs. They would sometimes look for early-stage companies and sometimes late-stage. Microsoft is a big one that is looking for companies that already have products but are very willing to work with them. It brings them very deep into the organization, and teaches them who in the organization are the right people to speak to.

Sramana Mitra: Very hard. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yipeng Zhao of Embark Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When you say you are comfortable investing $250,000 to $2 million, what do you want to see in terms of validation to be willing to invest?

Yipeng Zhao: A lot of the time, it depends on the stage of the company. We can do anywhere from idea stage, which we call pre-seed. This is basically a smart entrepreneur that has an idea. We are highly focused on deep tech stuff. They have great engineer work they developed but they don’t really have a prototype. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rob Schultz of Serra Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about your portfolio. What are the highlights that you’ve invested in? Especially help us understand at what stage you got involved. What excited you about that particular opportunity that led you to invest so we can get a feel for how you think about opportunities?

Rob Schultz: I can talk about one company in particular that I’m very excited about. We just closed a seed plus round for about $2.2 million in a company called Reconstruct here in our backyard. Reconstruct is in the construction software space. They work with large construction managers. They’re building big buildings such as stadiums. These are buildings that are a hundred million dollar plus of opportunities. They’re using technology to help them be more efficient in managing those projects. >>>