1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vincent Diallo of Interlace 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 Vincent Diallo was recorded in June 2020.

Vincent Diallo is Managing Partner at Interlace Ventures, a fund focused on retail tech.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us a bit about your background – how you got to venture capital and tell us a little about Interlace Ventures.

What is the focus of the fund and what other else you want to share in terms of check sizes that you like to write? What stage do you like to invest in? Let’s get to know each other.

Vincent Diallo: I am French and based in San Francisco. I’ve been investing for five years now. The latest is Interlace Ventures. We launched it last year with my partner Joseph. Joseph is also French and based in New York.

We are French and active on the US market, but we are actually coming from China. We are actually former operators in retail. We met at the negotiation table in China when I was CFO of a trading company and Joe was working for a famous mineral water brand called Évian.

That was the beginning of a friendship that turned out to be a business partnership, and now we are full partners-in-crime for Interlace. What happened is that the entrepreneur we used to work for in China moved to New York and called me over to manage his investment in startups. I invited Joe to join the adventure.

That was a family office that’s called Bleu Capital. We did 11 investments. It was a proof of concept as a way to refine our positioning on where we could really bring value to the system because, needless to say, even five years ago I don’t think the ecosystem was in need of a new micro-VC.

We had to identify relevant angles and a meaningful strategy that was quite aligned with our strengths and our backgrounds. So most of the investments with this family office were in retail technology. That gave us momentum to launch Interlace.

We were backed by this family office and also families that have extensive operations in the retail space. Different families gave us the momentum. 

Sramana Mitra: Within retail technology, what are your geographical footprints? Where would you invest and what are the constraints?

Vincent Diallo: We invest mainly in the US market. We have a preference for New York and Bay Area. Generally, we say 75% of our investments are in those regions and we remain 25% opportunistic to the rest of the US. I would even increase it to North America and maybe to the world.

Let’s be honest. We can be opportunistic, but our focus is just primarily those two regions and the main reason is to be close to the founders and have dynamic interaction. We have some value adds. We are very founder-friendly. We are happy to help and support where we can. 

Sramana Mitra: What check sizes do you write?

Vincent Diallo: We wrote from $50,000 to $500,000. Definitely pre-seed to seed.

Sramana Mitra: Do you also lead?

Vincent Diallo: No, we don’t have to.

Sramana Mitra: Do you or do you not lead?

Vincent Diallo: We led a few rounds, but I still consider that we are on the learning journey. The learning cycle of this is pretty long, so I’m happy to learn from the best practitioners and follow strong leads. It’s not a must.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vincent Diallo of Interlace Ventures
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