I interviewed Dafina Toncheva, Partner USVP @C2SV Conference. Shes been in venture capital for about 5 years. She likes to invest in the enterprise sector: enterprise IT & enterprise applications as well as security. USVP has been focusing on these sectors for over 30 years. There’s a lot of money to be made in this area over the next 10 years. Over the years there have been a few female vcs @USVP but Dafina is the only one at present (altho that is still 1 more than 99% of vc firms). A good friend of hers Nat Goldberg says that women fundamentally see the world differently & if you dont have a female @the table, you are missing out on that part of the world. She is the youngest partner @USVP & she has a technical background, shes a foreigner so international perspective. She believes she adds to the diversity of USVP which is important. She spoke about how the vc industry has always been interested in disruptive ideas & models & now the industry itself is being disrupted. She feels the changes are positive because it makes everyone think more carefully about the right ways to invest for their LPs. Competition is good for everyone & ultimately only the best succeed. They all have to be the best they can be in order to deserve & earn the money & the trust that is in their hands. ‘We all need to be challenged & if we are not challenged then we become lazy. This is one of the reasons that venture returns over the past 10 years haven’t been very good. Some firms will have to shut down but thats ok, that’s just the business of Life!”
LP record
Kristian Segerstrale, CoFounder Initial Capital #smartmoneysv
I interviewed Kristian Segerstrale, CoFounder Initial Capital @Gamesbeat. Kristian spoke about Initial Capital which is a Seed Investment Fund & is a collection of entrepreneurs who’ve had multiple successful companies in the past. He was a CoFounder Glu Mobile, a public games company & he was CEO/CoFounder Playfish which sold to Electronic Arts. Initial Capital focuses on game companies & consumer internet companies who need help growing the company from the start. They try & find like minded companies & really help them from product & marketing to technology or M&A or further financing. They think capital is a commodity & that it is the skills that are needed for early stage companies. His advice for anyone fundraising, whether games or any other industry is “Treat fundraising like a recruitment exercise! Think about what skill sets you want on board & get money in from people you think will bring those skill sets to the table.” He feels he is a Seed Investor rather than a Venture Capitalist, more a CoFounder inside companies & they dont take outside money they invest their own money. They dont have any LPs to explain a long term investment strategy to so they really can partner with the entrepreneur & really focus on the long term. They invested in SuperCell which is the largest IOS games company in the world today. He feels the startup ecosystem is globalizing very rapidly because barriers to entry, what it takes to set up a successful company, are coming down anywhere in the world. He built his first 2 ventures out of London & Supercell was built out of Finland which is also his home country. He feels the startup ecosystems around London, Helsinki & Berlin are actually beginning to rival Silicon Valley. Not necessarily in depth in terms of sheer amount of startups or capital deployed, but in specific areas, like games. In specific verticals you get expertise in other places also. Initial Capital feel that Silicon Valley is not the be all & end all of everything & most of their team is in London. He is based in Silicon Valley but is also frequently in Finland so they are really investing across the full access of Europe & the US. He feels that Europe has changed a lot for raising investment. There has been development of international funds like Index & Atomico Ventures who are comfortable investing at an early & late stage as well. There are also a set of Seed Funds from entrepreneurs who have been successful in the past who are keen to team up with early stage entrepreneurs & help them get going & supply them with first capital. He feels that it is important for European entrepreneurs who are successful go back into the game & help new startups.