1.) How Kate made her way into the world of startups and investing?
2.) What were the biggest takeaways from Kate's time at Lerer Hippeau Ventures and working with the amazing Ken Lerer?
3.) What was it about Galvanize that made Kate leave LHV and Kate provides a brief synopsis on Galvanize Ventures? Sectors? Stage? Geography?
4.) With 42 investments since Feb 2014. What is the strategy at Galvanize? Galvanize's sector weighting is largest in mobile, how does Kate view the space and how would Kate respond to the likes of Fred Wilson stating consumer mobile is very difficult with difficult customer acquisition and then even harder, customer retention?
5.) How has the process been for Kate in establishing the fund? What are Kate and Galvanize's key differentiators to the sea of other NYC seed funds? How does Kate approach deal sourcing at Galvanize? If investing outside the Galvanize community, what channels are the preferred channels?
6.) Why is Kate so excited about hardware? Where does Kate see the future of IOT going? Is crowdfunding an option for hardware startups?
1.) How David made his way into the world of startups and investing?
2.) Having started Box in 2008, how has David seen the NY venture and startup scene develop over the last years? Matt Hartman @ Betaworks: how has that impacted the type of investments you make? Has it changed your thesis, theme, or any other aspect of how you invest? Kanyi Maqubela @ Collaborative: Does an ecosystem need anchor companies to be great? What are New York's anchor companies?
3.) What is the vision with Box? Is this a fund that lasts through the ages? Last year I heard you made 3 hires, is this a sign of a desire to create the NYC fund? At Box you have a weighting towards mobile consumer tech, how do you respond to Fred Wilson’s post about the mobile downtown and the difficulty in attaining and maintating traction for mobile apps?
4.) What was the motivation behind moving into the world of entrepreneurship with Spring? What aspects of Alan's and Box as a product has contributed to it’s massive success?
Ivan Mazour is a serial entrepreneur, investor and author. He is the CEO and Founder of Ometria - a predictive analytics and marketing platform built specifically for retailers, letting them use data to increase revenues and provide an improved customer experience. Alongside this main role, he is also the Founding Partner of Innova Kapital - an early stage VC firm investing in UK-based technology startups, including companies like YPlan and organisations like Entrepreneur First. Ivan also writes a popular blog called “A Young Entrepreneur in London”.
1.) How Ivan progressed from making 30+ investments to founding one of Europe's hottest startups?
2.) Considering Ivan's recent fundraising, what does Ivan think of the recent funding environment and landscape? How was it raising venture funding now?
3.) What was the difference between raising an angel round to raising a VC round? Did Ivan have to adapt your pitch accordingly? Do they have differing desires and expectations?
4.) Having raised both VC and angel money recently for Ometria, how has that led Ivan to view his own investing style? Is there anything Ivan looks for or at differently now he has experienced fundraising from the other side?
5.) What have been the hardest and most challenging aspects of growing Ometria? How did Ivan overcome them?
6.) Taking futuristically now on the sector of e-commerce, where does Ivan see the future of technology integrating with retail? Will we see an end to bricks and mortar stores?
1.) How Philipp made it into startups and investing with AngelList and now 500?
2.) In a recent post Philipp said that management consulting, investment banking and accounting were the worst backgrounds for VCs. Why do you think this and where would you like to see the new breed of VCs emerging from?
3.) Considering your work with AngelList, how do you think the US investing scene differs from the European? Why are we seeing this sudden influx of US capital into European markets? What is driving this influx?
4.) The recent £400m that AngelList received from CSC, Philipp tells us a little more about this and what it means for European companies?
5.) How does Philipp's role with 500 integrate with the AngelList model? How does Philipp split the time? Is Philipp ever concerned that with the dominance of syndicates in the years to come, VCs will become non existent?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Morten Lund, best know for his seed investment in Skype, he has also founded and co-invested in more than 100 startups including the likes of Airhelp who you might recognize as we interviewed their CEO Nicolas Michaelsen in episode check 32, as well as Bullguard, Maxthon and many more. In today’s incredible interview we talk about the story behind his skype investment, how he went from $150m to bankruptcy moving to the present both with his work with Coders Trust helping coders in developing countries to improve their lives to his rocketship journey with one of the world’s most exciting fintech companies in Tradeshift, who have raised a total of over $200m. If you love today's episode, simply click here and share the love!
1.) How Morten got into the technology industry and the world of investing?
2.) How did Morten's investment in Skype come about? How did Morten deal with the bankruptcy and how it changed him as a person?
3.) How does Morten view the current state of European fintech? Where are the significant market opportunities that are yet to be exploited?
4.) Following Morten bankruptcy, he only works with "really cool people". So what makes Morten like someone and believe in them?
5.) How did TradeShift come about from Morten's basement? What was the a-ha moment? What has driven the immense success with over $200m invested? What is the future for the company and the future of money?
6.) Looking forward, what is Morten's main goal and aspiration and how does he plan on attaining it?
1.) What were the origins of Hiring Screen? What was the a-ha moment for Richard?
2.) What advice would Richard give to founders contemplating entering accelerators? What should they look for and why should they be wary of?
3.) Why does Richard believe that a startup with multiple founders is more beneficial than single founder startups? What would he suggest someone looking to find a co-founder is to do?
4.) Why did Richard start Hiring Screen in Hong Kong? What are Richard's views on Asia's emerging tech scene? What advice would Richard give to a founder deciding where to start a startup?
5.) What has been the most challenging element of growing Hiring Screen? How did Richard overcome it and alter the company from there?
6.) If Richard were to found Hiring Screen again, what would he do differently? Is there anything he wishes he had known before the process?