Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Strategy Consultant Sramana Mitra is writing a series called Investment Thesis in her Blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy. This series is a result of discussions with numerous entrepreneurs who are generally feeling that VCs are only interested in coming to the rescue of victory, and not really playing the role of risk-investors.
In her interviews with Venture Capitalists, and Angels, she asks questions like:
What stage are you looking to invest in over the next 6-12 months? What segment(s)? What market dynamics do you look for?
What size of investment are you looking to make?
What are your key investments and the rationale behind making those investments. This will help entrepreneurs understand how you process deals.
What kinds of deals are you interested in seeing?
a.. Describe, in some detail, the last deal you funded, and your rationale behind funding it.
b.. Do you fund capital-intensive deals?
c.. Do you fund built-to-flip deals?
d.. Do you fund "hits" businesses?
Describe your ideal entrepreneur.
Which VCs do you like to work with as part of a syndicate or follow-on?
What is your thesis on entrepreneurial / investment opportunities given the state of the market? What markets are likely to crash? What markets are likely to open up?
Recently, The Economist did a story called Business Angels: Giving Ideas Wings, addressing a similar concern. Sramana's series is specifically focused on the technology venture industry, by far the most active segment of the startup business.
From her recent post, "The Quest for Seed Continues":
"It is true. Most VCs don't do much early-stage investment anymore.
But since you would have to continue building your businesses, you need to find angels & perhaps some smaller VCs who would do your seed round. There are a few exceptions.
Here are four interviews with VCs from my Investment Thesis series that might help you think through your choices. I will continue this series further, and dig more into the topic later.
George Zachary, Charles River Ventures - Does seed investments, mostly in consumer plays, and open to any entrepreneur - proven or not. Alessandro Biral, Dali Hook Ventures - Does seed only if they already know you. Sumir Chadha, Sequoia Capital - Does seed, especially because his focus is India, and there are hardly any seed funds in India. Looking aggressively for deals, and competing in a very hot market. Alex Osadzinski, Trinity Ventures - Does seed only if they already know you."
About Sramana Mitra:
Sramana Mitra has been an entrepreneur and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley since 1994. Her fields of experience span from hard core technology disciplines like semiconductors to sophisticated consumer marketing industries including fashion and education.
As an entrepreneur CEO, Sramana founded 3 companies: Dais (Off-shore Software Services), Intarka (Sales Lead Generation and Qualification Software; VC: NEA) and Uuma (Online Personalized Store for selling clothes using Expert Systems software; VC: Redwood). Two of these were acquired, while the third received an acquisition offer from Ralph Lauren which the company did not accept.
In her current role as a strategy consultant, Sramana consults with public companies like SAP (Enterprise Software), Cadence Design Systems (Electronic Design Automation), Webex (Online Collaboration), KLA-Tencor (Semiconductor Capital Equipment), Tessera (Electronics Miniaturization) among others. Over the last five years as a consultant, her work has also included numerous startups and VCs, and she played Interim VP Marketing roles for seven such ventures. Sramana has a proven track-record in turn-arounds, both small private companies (Example: think3) and divisions of larger companies (Example: a $ 100 Million Business Unit of Cadence). She has also created major growth strategies through new market penetration, M&A, Industry Roll-ups, etc.
Sramana has a Masters degree in EECS from MIT and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Economics from Smith College. She is on the Board of the MIT Club of Northern California's Entrepreneurship Program.
contact: http://www.sramanamitra.com/contactme/
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