1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ondrej Bartos of Credo Ventures (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Ondrej Bartos was recorded in January 2019.

Ondrej Bartos, General Partner at Prague-based Credo Ventures, focuses on investing in Central European startups. Their major success story is UiPath in robotics processes automation that has raised $265 million at a $3 billion valuation. UiPath has over 2,100 customers and claims to have annual revenues of $150 million. We discuss the Romanian company in some detail.

Sramana Mitra: I heard about your firm from your friends from Czech Republic or Czechia now. You may have seen the stories we’ve done on some of your local colleagues. I’m really looking forward to getting acquainted with you. I would like to start by having you introduce yourself and Credo Ventures to our audience here. Then we’ll discuss what you’re up to out there. What are the trends in your space? >>>

Roundtable Recap: March 7 – Fascinating Ventures with Good Early Traction

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rahul Chowdhri, Investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, who shared some fascinating examples of consumer ventures catering to the next 400 million consumers in India.

Neeman’s
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had 1Mby1M Premium member Taran Chhabra from Hyderabad, India, pitching Neeman’s, a new shoe brand that is getting great traction in the Indian market.

Tibot
Next, Faisal Basar and Shahid Bandarkar from San Francisco, California, pitched Tibot, an AI-powered telehealth app to support dermatology care.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Keiper-Knorr of Speedinvest (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: There’s one topic that I want to explore with you which is very much in line with what you’re saying about the European market in a relative fragmentation due to language, culture, country boundaries, and so forth. In Silicon Valley or in the US market, in the Chinese Market, and even in India right now, there’s this kind of traditional venture capital. Every deal has to be a billion-dollar TAM. Every investment has to go from zero to $100 million in five to seven years. The unicorn thinking is prevalent.

Given the fragmentation that you’re describing in Europe, I imagine there are lots of opportunities for smaller TAM, more niche deals where you can invest and you can still make very good revenues and very good businesses. Except that there are certain dynamics that are a bit different, right? They have to be built more capital efficiently. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Keiper-Knorr of Speedinvest (Part 3)

Daniel Keiper-Knorr: We have one company in the portfolio in the Essex base. It’s an area that’s not so much in fashion with the recent VC industry, but still you can find super talented teams. The market is still large and growing. In the recent phase, three to five years is probably all about analytics. Nowadays, in the coming two years, it’s going to be all about data quality because all the AI and ML stuff will never work if the data quality is not there. It’s not just about quantity, quality is just as important. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Frank Malek of Impacteo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: We have a lot of activity right now in Europe. Recently in the last Fall, we announced a partnership with EIT Health. These are all healthcare IT companies. That’s probably aligned with your investment thesis. How about a few examples of deals that you have invested in and a little bit of a commentary on what is it in those deals that spoke to you? At what stage did you encounter them? How did you encounter them and why did they speak to you?

Frank Malek: Let me start with the trends that we’re seeing because we are looking for trends where we see opportunity. As I mentioned earlier, we love healthcare. We have had several exits around healthcare. The trend that we’re seeing right now is around AI and machine learning (ML). For example, we like where AI and ML technologies can be applied to healthcare and also to improve customer engagement or workflow automation around clinical trials. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Keiper-Knorr of Speedinvest (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double click down on your portfolio. In what shape did they come to you? What stage? What is it about them that attracted you enough for you to make the investment?

Daniel Keiper-Knorr: Typically, we try to be the first institutional investor coming on the cap table. However, we don’t see ourselves as a typical institutional investor because we run a very specific model that differs significantly from the standard two and twenty VC model. Apart from managing €50 million as supported by two to three principals and double the number of analysts and associates, our model is different. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Frank Malek of Impacteo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s say we send you a company. You will figure out from your network who is the likely investor that you want to do the deal with and have them price the deal and lead the deal. Is that what you’re saying?

Frank Malek: Yes, we prefer that. That’s right.

Sramana Mitra: You said you invest all over Europe and North America. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Keiper-Knorr of Speedinvest (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Daniel Keiper-Knorr was recorded in January 2019.

Daniel Keiper-Knorr is Founder and General Partner at Speedinvest, a venture firm based in Vienna. It’s great to see exciting energy and activity in Vienna, one of my favorite cities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by getting you acquainted with our community. Tell us about you. >>>