1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ira Weiss of Hyde Park Venture Partners (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Since 2013, there have been 50,000 to 70,000 seed investments. By seed, I mean the entire spectrum of pre-seed, seed, post-seed, and pre-Series A. That’s a lot of companies. The number of venture-funded companies is still very low. It’s 1,200 to 1,500 and it remains more or less constant.

At the other vector is that there are 500 to 700 micro-VCs of various sizes. There is a lot of capital, but it’s still very difficult to navigate for entrepreneurs. One of the reasons why I’m talking to all of you guys and trying to get some sense of this process is to help the entrepreneurs gain clarity on how to navigate this.

Ira Weiss: The good news is, there are a lot of seed-stage funds and there are a lot of investments that happen at the seed stage. There are so many that it then becomes that much harder to navigate to get the next round done. In terms of guidance to early-stage entrepreneurs, the thing about a lot of seed-stage funds is, there are some investments where people may just put $100,000 to $200,000.

You got a bunch of people who put a small amount in and you don’t necessarily have one or two key VCs that help guide you through the process. In other cases, you’ll have some of these well-established seed VCs where they’ll lead a lot of these rounds. Then you’ll get much better guidance.

Talking to people to help you navigate the process for your specific company is super helpful. In the early stages, it is useful to meet VCs on a pretty regular basis just to get feedback. The hardest round to get done is really getting Series A.

Sramana Mitra: Last question. In the last 12 months, what are the key trends that you’re seeing in the deal flow?

Ira Weiss: It certainly seems like there’s a lot of really good opportunities out there. The last couple of years, there has been a lot in AI. If feels like that is cooling off a little bit. There’s a lot going on within the cryptocurrency market now. I think people are generally assuming that it’s going to be a pretty attractive area to be investing in.

For me, it’s a little bit tough. Our fund has developed a strong reputation. Our deal flow has been quite strong. There’s just a lot more opportunities out there. There are markets of $200 million to $500 million which are markets in the software world which would have been hard to address a bunch of years ago. Now you can get something to address these small markets.

There are more and more people starting companies and more and more companies out there. That leads us to more and more good opportunities.

Sramana Mitra: Great talking to you. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ira Weiss of Hyde Park Venture Partners
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