1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Roman Kikta, Managing Partner at Mobility Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Where are you located?

Roman Kikta: I am based in Dallas, Texas, but we are distributed globally. I have partners in Barcelona, UK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sao Paulo. 

Sramana Mitra: How many partners are bringing in this $200 million of working capital. It sounds like all of them are general partners in your fund. 

Roman Kikta: We approximately have a dozen. They come in at different levels. Everything that we invest in, we invest in as a team. 

Sramana Mitra: What industries have your partners made money in? Is it all wireless and that’s why it’s Mobility Ventures? 

Roman Kikta: We’ve all made money in wireless, in the telecom sector as well as in the dot-com era. That’s where a lot of the capital came from. 

Sramana Mitra: Does the current investment thesis have anything to do with wireless and mobility?

Roman Kikta: It does. Mobility is about that dynamic lifestyle. It’s just more than networks and applications. Right now, if a company does not have a mobile strategy, I don’t think they have a future. This is about connectivity, being connected, and always connected.

We are looking at some great strides that are taking place right now. For example, in the healthcare sector, especially with the pandemic, everything is being connected online virtually. We are a part of that ecosystem. 

Sramana Mitra: Your thesis is mobility and connectedness. That is your business focus, but you want to be geographically diverse. What about B2B and B2C? Do you do one or the other or both?

Roman Kikta: Primarily, we focus on B2B companies, but as you know, a lot of the B2B companies have applicability to B2C. Our primary focus is on B2B. But again, they do have a crossover.

To give you an example, one of the companies I’m running is called Phenometrics. We are an AI company that decodes a human’s genetic personality, character traits, and behavior. We decode strictly using appearance. Everything about an individual is a genetic code.

We serve a variety of industries from online dating to executive search and recruitment. We are also coming up with a component where we can touch the end consumer directly as well. 

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to ask you the stage question as I’m sure that you are watching the fragmentation that is happening in the early ecosystem. It’s no longer the seed and series A. The seed part has fragmented to friends and family, pre-seed, post-seed, small series A, and large series A.

Where do you play? What do you want to see in the early stage that you are willing to come into a deal? What do you want to see by way of proof points? 

Roman Kikta: Our model at Mobility ensures that every member and partner comes from the industry. We are all entrepreneurs and corporate guys. We are all people that understand the marketplace. We are putting a slightly different perspective as a financier.

We are not just a source of capital, but we are really company builders. By having that insight, we have slightly different perspectives. We don’t get involved in an opportunity unless we know what the end game is.

We know the industry, marketplace, and we have a global ecosystem that will vet the ecosystem globally. It’s not just about what will work in the US. It has to work on a global scale. We focus on the things that we understand and can add value to.

I believe that it is imperative that entrepreneurs choose their investors wisely. You need more than capital. You need to have a value-add investor. You provide a tremendous amount of insight and perspective to entrepreneurs through your understanding of the challenges that they are facing as well as knowledge of the market. We do the same thing. We believe that you need to bring additional value than just capital. 

This segment is part 2 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Roman Kikta, Managing Partner at Mobility Ventures
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