1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Taylor Greene of Collaborative Fund (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The next question I have for you is a slightly broader question. Are you looking for unicorns?

Taylor Greene: I think the short answer is yes. I’m always looking for unicorns. Historically, when you look at the math of venture capital, you need a unicorn in a fund in order to be a top-performing fund. The good news is we put about 35 companies into a fund.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Ibri of Mindset Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is the scale of the consumer internet population right now in Brazil?

Daniel Ibri: We have passed the mark of more than a smartphone per person. That shows you that a huge number of the population is connected. We have very good broadband in most of the country. A lot of people use digital services.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Taylor Greene of Collaborative Fund (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: In the thesis-driven situation, you are looking for a team that can execute on that thesis. In the opportunistic cases, they come to you with the ideas. If you like them and fit your world view, you would accept.

Talk about a couple of ventures that you have invested in. Also just to give us a feel for how you think about these companies, talk us through the stage at which they come to you. What is it about them that captured your attention?

Roundtable Recap: June 20 – Startups, Prune Your Grapes

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest, Victoire Laurenty, Associate at Kerala Ventures in Paris who discussed the French eco-system.

Probus Sense

As for the entrepreneur pitch session, we first had Ankit Vaish from New Delhi, India, pitch Probus Sense, an IoT company that is focusing on the energy sector and is already generating revenues.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Ibri of Mindset Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Are you looking for unicorn-style investments or are you also interested in the smaller niche plays that are going to have smaller exits. Let’s say $50 million to $100 million exits.

Daniel Ibri: We are interested in the smaller ones. I honestly believe that’s a very smart niche to be at this time.

Sramana Mitra: I do too.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Taylor Greene of Collaborative Fund (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me about the kinds of B2C ventures you like to invest in. Besides the ventures doing good element, is there other parameterization that you could put on your preferred investments?

Taylor Greene: I try to simplify as much as possible. It’s my job to find outstanding entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas who are solving big problems in markets that are either big already or that could grow into something huge. I’m always looking for that.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Ibri of Mindset Ventures (Part 3)

Daniel Ibri: If you go to a retail shop, you can normally pay for your high end equipment in installments. It’s really common for the Brazilian market. These retailers end up giving credit, direct to consumers, out of their own balance sheet. The delinquency rate is really huge. It’s something around 30% to 50%. The startup’s mission is really meaningful. They [retailers] came with one of the founders. We took them to the C-levels of the biggest retailers, banks, and FinTechs in Brazil for partnerships.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Taylor Greene of Collaborative Fund (Part 2)

Taylor Greene: I think the major shift over the last six years since I’ve been doing this full-time is in the nomenclature. Pre-seed is really akin to what would have been a seed round or angel round 10 years ago. Typically that’s between $750,000 and a million dollars.

Ten years ago when I was raising money for my last company, our Series A was $4 million. Today, that would probably be called a seed round. Today, you’re seeing a lot of seed extensions which tend to be a $5 million round. That would have been more of a Series A ten years ago.