Investor Connect Podcast

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In due diligence, what isn't being said or shared is as important as what is. When a startup pitches their idea, you should be skeptical of founders that don't mention potential risks or discuss their experience in the industry, or their traction. Here are other key items the invest...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In due diligence you may encounter red flags indicating something is wrong. Here are some that I've found: The founders are not investing any of their own money into the business. The cap table is crowded with many small investors. That means the earlier funding was a challenge. The...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The prospective investor wants to see traction in your fundraise just as they want to see traction in your core business. In raising funding, investors will first express interest and then make a commitment before actually investing. In a fundraise, you want to capture all three lev...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Harlan Mandel, CEO of Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF). Harlan joined the company in 1998 and was appointed CEO in 2011. MDIF is an impact-investment fund which "provides affordable debt and equity financing to independent news and information businesses in countries where access to free and independent media is under threat." MDIF funds deals across the worl...

In this episode, Hall is joined by Vikram Lakhwara, Co-founder and Managing Director of Green Cow Venture Capital (GCVC) which is a sector-agnostic, early-stage, micro venture capital fund "backing dynamic founding teams solving global market problems around inefficiency and scarcity using greenfield technologies." They invest at the Seed+ and Series A stages and their average seed deal check size...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts what venture capital funds. We'll see changes in the following ways: Goods and services deemed 'essential' will receive funding such as cannabis, CBD, and hemp. Alcohol will see increased funding as well. In the wellness category, smoking cessation,...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including manufacturing and automation. We'll see changes in the following ways: Manufacturing will shift back to the US to secure the supply chain for critical needs. Companies will accelerate plans to automate functions to...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including IT and cybersecurity. We'll see changes in the following ways: With the shift to distributed employees and remote work, there will be more people logging in from remote locations. This opens the door for more cyber...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including logistics and supply chain. We'll see changes in the following ways: The need for flexible manufacturing come to the forefront in the Coronavirus pandemic in the form of ventilators, COVID-19 tests, and medical sup...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including education. We'll see changes in the following ways: Education has been moving online for the last twenty years. With online courseware, virtual classroom tools and more, the coronavirus will accelerate the move onl...

In this episode, Hall is joined by Thomas Cali of Polaris Advisory. Thomas, a long-time investor in some large and well-known companies, has years of experience in the technology, telecom and healthcare spaces. He stresses the importance of teamwork to run a successful company and gives advice on how executive burnout can be avoided and why it's important to delegate. Polaris Advisory represents a...

In this episode, Hall is joined by Christopher Hugman, CEO of System Surveyor, established in 2017 in Austin, Texas. System Surveyor is an award-winning, cloud-based platform Software as a Service (SaaS) which helps system-integration contractors and technology professionals in the electronic physical security industry, as well as other markets. He gives his three top pieces of advice for what he...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including work. We'll see changes in the following ways: Increased usage of remote-work software tools. Video conferencing, shared drives, Slack, and other tools make virtual work efficient and will grow in adoption. Remote...

In this episode, Hall welcomes back Eric Smith, Founder and CEO of AppBrilliance. Established in 2015 and located in Austin, Texas, AppBrilliance has created a platform which "unlocks the future of money by removing the barriers between technology companies and the financial institutions." Eric speaks about the "whirlwind" of the past few months with the launching of a new product. He provides ins...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Matt Gallant, Founder and CEO of tribeOS which is "a real-time, full-featured, and decentralized advertising marketplace [which] can be constructed with the prudent use of blockchain technology combined with an independent peer-to-peer network." Matt has always been passionate about advertising and speaks at length about detecting and fighting the "invisible crime",...

In this episode, Hall is joined by Xavier Segura, Managing Partner of Tessera Venture Partners, headquartered in New York. Tessera Venture Partners is an early-stage venture fund investing in transformative companies with exceptional founders "having at least one major exit in an area related to their current business". Xavier is not new to the world of investing in startups as prior to Tessera, h...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. I'm often asked what venture capital looks for. VCs look for emerging tech markets with strong growth projections. These sectors include blockchain, AI, Data Analytics, and other strong growth areas. They do this partly because there's usually strong deal flow and it's easy to expla...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including healthcare. For healthcare startups, we'll see changes in the following ways: Increased use of telemedicine. The pandemic highlights the challenge of centralizing all healthcare functions in one place. There are ma...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Today's question is from Markeyla Markeyla asked: I would love some direction about creating relationships in the VC world. Although I have been accepted into an accelerator, I don't have many connections in the VC world. Response:Markeyla, It's a good idea to build a relationship w...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Many people want to work for a VC especially those straight out of college. Most are not aware of the challenging dynamics that come with the VC life. Here are a few:Raising funding -- just like startups, the VC has to raise funds too. LPs tend to be rear-view-mirror oriented and no...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In pitching your business plan, consider using the story format. Start with the problem you faced. Show how you couldn't find a solution so you created your own. And now others are coming to you for that solution. Along the way you can talk about how you built the team and chose a g...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Today, we'll talk about how to achieve an exit in a startup investment. It's easy to get into a startup investment, but difficult to get out -- especially with a positive return. Most startup exits come when they sell the business to another company or go public on the stock exchange. It ta...

In this episode, Hall is joined by John Osborne, Executive Administrator of Charleston Angel Partners. Charleston Angel Partners is headquartered in North Carolina, and was started in 2001 as "the area's longest-tenured and most established angel investment group." The group of angel investors believes that "meaningful economic impact happens when great people support great ideas." John is also th...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Pierre Rogers of Yahyn powered by Puro Trader, the platform that brings together retailers, vineyards, and sinners with a focus on Amazon-like convenience to purchasing as well as providing the first true price and inventory discovery mechanism for these regulated industries. It is the first of its kind online aggregator for wine with a user base that is currently gr...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Coronavirus pandemic impacts many parts of the economy including consumer product goods. For the consumer-product-goods space, we'll see changes in the following ways: Many CPG companies will see greater demand for their product as the shutdown of restaurants shifts consumers to...