1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures 2021 (Part 1)

Tim Guleri is Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. We have a terrific discussion on Business Model Innovation and Distribution Innovation that Tim believes trumps technology innovation. We go through some excellent examples. Do check it out!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s welcome Tim Guleri from Sierra Ventures. I have known him for a very long time. I am a big fan of Sierra Ventures and all the work that the firm does. I have a personal story with Sierra Ventures which I will tell you about in a moment. Thank you for coming.

Tim Guleri: Thanks for the invite. It’s nice to see you again. Certainly in these COVID infused times, it’s great to see your smiling face this morning.  

Sramana Mitra: Tim, I have to tell you a story before we go on. You probably know my husband Dominique Trempont because Sierra funded Kanisa which was a company that he ran. Dave Schwab was on his board, and in 2001, Dominique was running Kanisa.

Dominique and Dave were talking and Dominique has this idea of a business model within Kanisa which was going to be in some direction. Dominique was chatting with Dave, and Dave said, “Oh, why don’t you call Sramana, and she can work it out?”

That was the first time I met Dominique. We did this project and I went off. Two years later, we reconnected professionally, and we have been together ever since.

Tim Guleri: That is such a great story. This is truly a venture capital value add in all dimensions. This is great. I had no idea.

Sramana Mitra: Anyway, let’s talk about what is going on at Sierra. What are you doing with the firm and what is the current investment thesis?

Tim Guleri: Sierra is an early-stage venture capital firm. This is our 39th year in operation. We are singularly focused on B2B deep tech. We don’t do consumer-oriented companies. We are deep in the sector. We think we specialize and add value in the early stage of venture investing.

We are investing in our 12th fund which was raised in March 2020. We are looking for elite entrepreneurs that have a bold vision and those who want to build lasting companies. We don’t care where in the world you are. We want to be the bridge to the US and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

We want to work with these co-founders to reimagine and build a lasting company. I have been with Sierra since 2002, so nearly 20 years. We just love what we do in the early stage business building. 

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on a bunch of things that you have said there. First, what is your definition of the early stage? At what point do you like to come into a B2B deal? What do you like to see by way of proof points? What is your entry point?

Tim Guleri: If you asked me this question every five years that I have been in Sierra, the answer would be slightly different because the market keeps evolving and keeps shifting. Because of the fact that you can build and scale a company with a few dollars relative to 20 years ago, we are seeing some pretty innovative work being done by entrepreneurs.

We have likewise become flexible as an early-stage fund to provide the needs of the entrepreneur. We fit the dollar check that we write to the needs of the company. We flipped it around. We do so pre-seeds which in definition would be less than a million. We do seed, which I jokingly call fat seeds. These are $2 million to $4 million in size.

We also do series A’s which is around $6 million to $7 million. The takeaway would be that we are flexible in the check size. It depends on the milestone the company is at today and what the milestones are going to look like in 18 months. We want to underwrite that journey.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures 2021
1 2 3 4 5 6