Investor Connect Podcast

In this episode, Hall welcomes Krista Morgan, General Partner at Stage and founding partner of the Stage Fund. With its headquarters in Denver, Colorado, Stage makes control-based investments in businesses that have proven market traction but need a new approach and capital partner to get to the next level. Stage is a turnaround venture fund that offers early stage-small and medium-sized enterpris...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Having a strong company culture helps the startup succeed. Customers and partners are attracted to companies with strong cultures. It guides the employees on what is important. The CEO fosters the company culture. In general, CEOs build cultures they like to work in. It's important...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Abby Levy, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Primetime Partners. With its headquarters in New York, NY, Primetime Partners are an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in, and builds from the ground up, companies that can transform the quality of living for older adults. They support the founders and organizations that create meaningful new products, services,...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. An entrepreneur raising funding must demonstrate confidence. Investors will look for someone who has confidence in their plan, their team, and themselves. Oftentimes entrepreneurs fake confidence and come off looking cocky, which is unfounded confidence. True confidence inspires oth...

In this episode, Hall welcomes back Jake Ryan, founder and CIO of TRADECRAFT Capital and author of "Crypto Asset Investing in the Age of Autonomy". "Crypto Asset Investing in the Age of Autonomy is an indispensable handbook showing new and experienced investors how established financial strategies like valuation and asset allocation apply to these new markets. Equipped with this knowledge, any inv...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. There's a quantitative side and a qualitative side to due diligence. The quantitative side includes checking the list of documents in the data room to verify the accuracy of those documents. For example, do the entity filings match what the company said they have? Do the intellectua...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Anil Ramineni, CEO of CQ Infotech. CQ Infotech was founded in 2005 and is based out of Laguna Hills, California and India. It is an IT solution company that specializes in end-to-end managed IT, infrastructure, and global delivery services to their clients, ranging from small regional companies to Fortune 500 multinational corporations. They align technology to suppo...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Entrepreneurs are often concerned about the confidentiality of their information. During the initial engagement with the investor, it's not common to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) as the investor is still figuring out the basics of your business. At the introductory stage, k...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In startup investing, investors take in information from the startup about the product, team, financials, revenue, and more. This information does change rapidly in the startup phase of the business. One method of assuring the investor the information provided is true and accurate i...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Ashu Garg, General Partner at Foundation Capital. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Foundation Capital was founded in 1995. As an early-stage venture capital firm, they have lived through the emergence of the World Wide Web, the IT war of the 90s, the dot-com bubble, Web 2.0, the mobile revolution, the Great Recession, the rise of Big Data, software's ascension...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In diligencing a startup, the size of the market is a key question. The larger the market, the greater the growth potential of the startup. There's rarely a need to pay for research as so much exists on the web. In searching the web, you'll find research reports giving market sizes,...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Kiyan Zandiyeh, CIO at Sturgeon Capital. Headquartered in London, England, Sturgeon Capital is a leading frontier markets investment boutique. Since the establishment of Fund 1 in 2016, they have made nine investments. Sturgeon Capital focuses on technology-enabled businesses that offer a product or service which solves an unserved, acute pain point for a large addre...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. How can an investor group make the diligence process manageable? Here are some steps: Standardize the diligence process Break it down into subtasks and define the process for each task Assign the tasks to team members Set target dates for completion and have periodic check-ins with...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Tools are important for running a deal-flow process. You'll need tools for managing deal flow, running diligence, and tracking the portfolio. For deal flow, there needs to be an application process for capturing the essential information and pitch deck. Examples include Proseeder, G...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Archie Cheishvili, CEO of GenesisAI. With its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, GenesisAI is a Machine Learning protocol. On top of this protocol, they are building a marketplace for AI products and services - Amazon for AI. The marketplace connects companies in need of AI services, data, and models with companies interested to monetize their AI tech. By linking...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In early-stage investing, someone needs to take the lead and screen the deals, diligence selected ones, and negotiate the valuation with the chosen ones. In most cases, the lead investor doesn't want to be the only one in the deal and promotes other investors to join. This promotion...

In today's show, you'll hear investor perspectives on COVID-19's impact on the CPG sector. This is Investor Perspectives, I'm the host of Investor Connect, Hall T Martin, where we connect startups and investors for funding. It's the time of COVID-19. The consumer product goods space is currently undergoing tremendous change across the U.S. The lockdown has disrupted the supply chain, manufacturing...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In running a diligence process it's important to keep track of the progress of team members. Set up frequent follow-up calls to check progress and resolve issues. Follow-up calls should be scheduled and led by the deal lead. A check-in call should take no more than 30 minutes. In th...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. There are three phases to diligence before funding a startup: Documentation diligence Team diligence Domain diligence For documentation diligence, ask the startup for a list of key documents for diligence. The key documents include: Entity filings and articles of incorporation Paten...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Braden Barr, seed investor and Board Member at PostitPlayit, and Charles Reinert, Co-founder of PostitPlayit. Based in Dallas, Texas, PostitPlayit Inc. is a startup offering a first of its kind alternative to fantasy sports and peer-to-peer gaming. With PostitPlayit, users are able to research and pick their favorite teams, set their own spread, and easily invite fri...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In running due diligence it's important to build a team and bring others into the process. A deal lead should take care of gathering the initial documents so the team doesn't stall out waiting on the startup. Assign each team member a task and include the instructions for the task....

In today's show, you'll hear investor perspectives on the COVID-19 impact on the SaaS sector. This is Investor Perspectives, I'm the host of Investor Connect, Hall T Martin, where we connect startups and investors for funding. It's the time of COVID-19. Software as a Service is currently undergoing tremendous change across the U.S. The lockdown has disrupted many industries such as travel, hospita...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. After the diligence is complete and the open questions answered, the team must decide whether or not to invest. It's important to identify the risks and write them out in the report. The team should articulate an investment thesis that includes the opportunity in the deal such as ho...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startups can raise funding even without a lead investor. In this situation, the startup acts as the lead. Here are three steps to take: First, the startup must present investor-friendly terms and conditions. There should be no push back on the terms. Second, the startup must supply...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startups who find an investor expressing interest often stop their fundraise as they believe - or sometimes hope - this will be the one who completes the rest of their raise. I tell entrepreneurs to continue the fundraise effort until the funds are in the bank account. I've seen dea...