1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nnamdi Okike of 645 Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What trends are you seeing in your deal flow? What strikes you as emerging trends?

Nnamdi Okike: There are three themes that we use to drive our sourcing strategy. These themes have evolved as a result of what we are seeing in the market, as well as where we’ve done well historically. The first is what we call software for the second wave.

We describe that as verticalized software companies that are pursuing market verticals that, historically, have had low software penetration but given the evolution of software, enable workers improve how they do business.

If you think about examples of that, you’re seeing it in a lot of different areas. You might have seen the acquisition of PlanGrid in construction. You’re seeing it in areas such as real estate.

As an example, one of our most recent deals is a business called Squire. Squire provides software for the barbershop and the salon market. The barbershop, historically, don’t use software. You go to the barbershop, sit there, and wait for your haircut.

Typically, you pay in cash. You don’t have the ability to book via mobile phone. You can’t use your credit card. The barbershop, itself, doesn’t have software for payroll. What we found now is that barbershops are much more willing to adapt technology because it can make their businesses run better. That’s what Squire does and it’s representative of software for the second wave theme.

The second theme that we are looking closely into is what we call citizen professionals. We describe citizen professionals as an area where the tools of data science and analytics can enable workers who aren’t necessarily experts in certain areas to become like experts.

A company like Tableau is a good example of that where folks can do advanced data visualization and graphs without necessarily having a PhD in data science or programming. We’re seeing a lot of different areas where that approach is starting to manifest itself into new startups. Everything from financial analysis to the legal field.

This theme of citizen professionals is one where we think there’s going to be a lot of interesting startups that really improves how the average worker does their daily work. It enables them to have the skills that are similar to what you might have seen with very expensive experts. The last theme is what we call personalized consumer experiences.

I touched a little bit on describing some of our consumer investments. One of our beliefs is that you’re going to see a new wave of consumer companies that provide much more personalized experiences. One example of a business in that theme is Stitch Fix. They provide personalized styling experiences to customers using advanced data and data science. That’s one example.

We think we’re going to see a lot of startups in those categories. Those are the three themes we’re spending our time in. We’re looking for great startups that are fitting those themes.

This segment is part 5 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nnamdi Okike of 645 Ventures
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