1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sandeep Sardana, Founder and General Partner at BluePointe Ventures (Part 1)

Sandeep Sardana is Founder and General Partner at BluePointe Ventures. We had a terrific discussion on how we each look for a startup story through financial metrics.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing yourself to our audience. Tell us a bit about your journey. What path brings you here?

Sandeep Sardana: I had an entrepreneurial bent of mind for a long time. It runs in my family. My father and my brother are entrepreneurs. Since high school, I have always been hustling and selling stuff. Along the way, I was involved in a few startups. At some point, I founded an angel investment network and invested through that. It gave me an opportunity to launch a fund. That’s how I got started in Venture.

Sramana Mitra: How big is the fund?

Sandeep Sardana: We are eight to ten years old. We started with a smaller fund. The first couple of funds were $10 million a piece. Now we launched two $25 million funds. That’s $50 million being launched now. We are now working on raising a later-stage, follow-on fund. As companies from the early-stage funds are graduating, we’d like to absorb some of them pro rata.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s try to double-click on the early stage fund. Tell us about stage. What stage do you like to get involved in? More specifically, what is your investment thesis of the early-stage fund?

Sandeep Sardana: BluePointe is a generalist investor. We invest very early. We might, in fact, go all the way to pre-seed. Oftentimes, we’d like to see some traction. We ask the entrepreneur to tell their story through the financials. It’s sort of an interesting take. As the entrepreneurs talk about their vision, they have to keep an eye on building the business. Articulating the business through financials gives us a lot more comfort that we’re looking at something that can have a sense of venture-based business model.

Sramana Mitra: Let me probe that a bit. When you’re doing a pre-seed venture, you still want the entrepreneur to tell the story in financial terms?

Sandeep Sardana: An entrepreneur has to keep an eye on cash flows. They have to understand that most businesses don’t go out of business; they just run out of money. They don’t have to get it right the first time. They just have to be able to articulate a few things properly. We work with them, but we want to know that the person articulating the financials has a good enough understanding of what is going to matter. As they graduate to the next level of financing, those things will matter more. What to keep an eye on is important.

Sramana Mitra: As you know, we do these sessions with an educational agenda. Do you have a case study where a pre-seed company did a really good job of articulating their finances? What did they tell you?

Sandeep Sardana: I do have one case study. This is an entrepreneur who has done it before, so he knew exactly what to tell us. Outside of that, it’s harder and harder.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sandeep Sardana, Founder and General Partner at BluePointe Ventures
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