1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nate Redmond of Alpha Edison (Part 2)

Nate Redmond: Investors including myself sat and looked at the company and didn’t quite understand the size and scope of the opportunity. Being an expert in hospitality didn’t necessarily help you. In fact, it probably created blind spots. The focus for us is really understanding how you can engage a supply base and organize it to really unlock a large portion of latent demand.

Unlocking that latent demand really requires understanding the types of behaviors that people would like to engage in and yet aren’t because they’re otherwise constrained. In the case of Airbnb, one of the most important elements that unlocked that behavior was a sense of trust.

Trust, for us, has become one of these foundational layers and lenses that we look through to really understand how you can build trust. What types of new behaviors emerge and what does that allow you to do in terms of reshaping the business model within that industry? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nate Redmond of Alpha Edison (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 Nate Redmond of Alpha Edison was recorded in February 2018.

Nate Redmond, Managing Partner at Alpha Edison, a VC who has put trust-driven ventures at the center of his investment thesis. It’s a very interesting conversation for both entrepreneurs and investors to listen to.

Sramana Mitra: Tell our audience about Alpha Edison and yourself. Let’s introduce you to the audience. The last time we spoke, you were doing something else. You were in the middle of putting this new thing together. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that I should have asked you?

Corey Schmid: I’m curious to hear your thoughts a bit on the correction going on in the market now.

Sramana Mitra: It’s way overdue.

Corey Schmid: It is way overdue. It’s not a crash. I think it’s a correction, and it’s happening. One thing that we tend to want to lean in is how do you weather that storm. If we’re investing at seed or even Series A, how do these companies ensure that they’re able to get to that next stage? Funding is moving upstream.    >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: If you can close deals of that size, yes. What is your value proposition in those scenarios? Let’s say your specialty is digital health. You have a company that comes to you with product market fit. Where are your relationships?

Corey Schmid: We do have strong strategic and corporate relationships based on our own backgrounds. Over time as we work with these companies, we’ve been able to open up a lot of the doors for customers and advisors. Where I think we can add the most value is in that syndication process. You know this well. Your investors are part of that family. You’re getting married and it’s imperative that you’re building a really good team for the long haul. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You emphasized geography greatly. Pacific Northwest is the sweet spot of the fund. You don’t invest outside?

Corey Schmid: We do. We call it the Mountain West. One of our newest deals is out of Phoenix. They’re in the no-password security space. Majority of our deals are in Oregon and Seattle. We have five or six investments in the Bay Area. We have a deep network there based on our syndicate partners and investors that come on in later rounds.

We have two in Boulder. We’re seeing talent in those regions. What’s lagging is sophisticated capital to help grow those businesses. The Bay Area is chock full of successful funds. We’re identifying opportunities primarily outside of the Bay Area. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this series. The following interview with Corey Schmid of Seven Peaks Ventures was recorded in February 2018.

Corey Schmid is General Partner at Seven Peak Ventures, a firm with a focus on the Pacific Northwest.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a little bit about yourself and Seven Peaks. Let’s get to know the fund. What size is the fund? What’s your investment thesis?

Corey Schmid: I’m a General Partner with Seven Peaks Ventures. We are located in Oregon. We are an early stage venture capital >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture Partners (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How do you parse unicorn mania?

Mackey Craven: By unicorn mania, do you mean the number of companies that have billion-dollar plus valuations that are still private?

Sramana Mitra: A lot of things. There’s unicorn mania in that there’s so much capital. There is a rush to fund these later stage companies and overfund these later stage companies. Last year, we did an extensive coverage of a phenomenon. It’s a unicorn mania negative phenomenon called Death by Overfunding. These were very good companies. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel of ff Venture Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Unicorn mania started to rationalize a little bit in 2016. This year, it has stabilized. But there is still a huge amount of late stage capital out there. Traditional VCs have raised very large funds. As a seed investor, you could get buried under later stage liquidation preferences if valuations run up like that. How do you protect yourself?

John Frankel: When valuations run up, you’re fine. It’s when valuations stall or run back that you have issues.

Sramana Mitra: Both happen. Once valuation runs up, it stalls because fundamentals don’t deliver to valuation. >>>