1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rob Schultz of Serra 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 Rob Schultz of Serra Ventures was recorded in March 2018.

Rob Schultz, Managing Partner at Serra Ventures, discusses catering to startups in under-served geographies. His point of view aligns with what we’ve heard from some other investors.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Serra Ventures and about yourself. Let us introduce our audience to you. How big is the fund? What is the investment focus? What sized investments do you make?

Rob Schultz: We’re an early-stage venture fund. We have offices in three different locations and are headquartered here in Champagne, Illinois. We have an office in Chicago and San Diego. Our focus primarily is on underserved geographies which we think is a tremendous opportunity that the founders of our fund have built network in over the last 20 years or so.

What’s unique about our fund is our team. We call ourselves a team of former CEO’s. We really believe that to be a good coach, you had to have been a player before. All of the partners have been CEOs of high-tech venture-backed startups in their career which enables us to have empathy and be better coaches for our entrepreneurs.

Sramana Mitra: You want to talk very briefly about your CEO experience?

Rob Schultz: I was actually the Founder and CEO of a company called DigitalWork back in the late 90’s. It was a very exciting time. I have a lot of war stories that I share with entrepreneurs. I started the company from scratch with zero employees and grew it very quickly over a couple of years to 140 employees. I raised over $65 million in venture from firms and strategic.

We were developing tools for the small business market. These are simple tools like getting a website or developing an online marketing campaign. We filed to have an IPO in 2000. We got caught in the NASDAQ crash when the NASDAQ went from over 5,000 to 3,000 in a matter of a couple of days. We did not have a successful IPO. We downsized after that. We went into a recession and ultimately found a nice exit for the company, and I went on to be a venture capitalist.

Sramana Mitra: How big a fund is Serra Ventures?

Rob Schultz: We’re currently investing out of fund three, which is about $35 million.

Sramana Mitra: The early stage market has also segmented quite significantly. We are seeing people who are doing pre-seed, seed, and post-seed. That begs the question of what is the difference between post-seed and pre-Series A. Where in that continuum do you like to play?

Rob Schultz: You nailed it. It has gotten more complicated. When I was an entrepreneur, you had friends and family and Series A. That was about it. Now it is more of a continuum. We tend to get involved in the seed to early Series A. Companies that we’ve invested in tend to have come out of an accelerator and had done a seed round through friends and family.

Sramana Mitra: What is the sweet spot in terms of check size?

Rob Schultz: We tend to write checks in the $500K to $750K range initially. We tend to be part of a syndicate either leading or being a significant player in $1 million to $3 million round.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rob Schultz of Serra Ventures
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