1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vincent Diallo of Interlace Ventures (Part 3)

Vincent Diallo: I could also mention Singuli, which is an investment we did in January. They’re active in forecasting with the first end goal in fashion that is also touching FMCG somehow. We suffered this pain as an operator. We know the risk in that inventory in terms of performance of the company.

One of the permanent questions was, “How do we improve the quality of our forecast?” What we did for them is exactly in line with our approach and positioning. Something I did not mention is that Interlace is not only focused on the investment space but is also verticalized in a way.

We try to have strategic LPs around the table meaning that they have an interest in helping us accelerate the portfolio.

Sramana Mitra: I’m sorry I just don’t understand what this company does? What is the value proposition? 

Vincent Diallo: It’s Daemon forecasting. It’s basically optimizing your inventory level. I could say the same about Algopix which is a company we invested in November. They have a lot of analytics and insights on transactions in a marketplace.

I think it has the most complete set of data on marketplace transactions. We make it a point to give them additional business through our connections. That is a pretty strong element for a founder to choose us.

Sramana Mitra: Let me ask a bit of a trend question. Given where we are right now, retail is one of the categories that is going through a really horrible moment. Of course, e-commerce is going really well on the counter side. Fashion is doing terribly.

How do you parse the post-COVID world? How are you thinking about your companies’ both of what you have invested in and what you want to invest in going forward?

Vincent Diallo: I agree with you on the first portion of the analysis. Of course COVID has been damaging many retail operations, but at the same time, it’s a tremendous acceleration of the digital transformation. If you invested on those lines for a while, it’s only good news.

A good friend of mine is mentioning that we’ve been through a five-year acceleration in five weeks. They’re ahead of the projection in terms of revenue because there’s definitely a need for those new tools. There’s an acceleration in the digital space.

I see even more potential for some technologies that present new ways to engage with the consumers – new ways to relate to the consumers, new ways to serve the consumer, and new ways to propose exciting experience. Video commerce is going to serve a lot of opportunities.

We invested in Cargo AI last month. I’m actually super bullish about the space in terms of innovation in the coming years. We are not going to stop consuming. Of course consumers’ behaviors adapt very quickly to the environment.

We have no idea on how deep the change will be. It seems that once the market reopens, consumers are quick to go back to their previous habits. We still don’t have any idea if we are going to have a second wave or not.

There are many uncertainties to really measure the deep impact, but digitally-speaking, there’s clearly an acceleration and of course transformation of the outlying experience that leans in the direction of what we’ve been advocating for over the past years.

I’m not even talking about omni-channel today. It’s just table stakes. It’s not even a question of how to make sure that we offer all the possibilities to the consumer to have the shopping journey that satisfies them. 

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Vincent Diallo of Interlace Ventures
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