5 Qs WITH A DEALMAKER
Venture capitalist Ashmeet Sidana believes that some of the best Silicon Valley companies owe their success to a technical insight.
After parting ways with Foundation Capital in 2013, Sidana decided to try out a new investing strategy — back founders taking technical risk, not market risk.
His firm, Engineering Capital, leads seed rounds in companies solving technical problems in the software and core IT infrastructure space. He raised $32 million for his first fund, and $50 million for his second, which he just began investing out of in Q2 of 2018.
“Most venture firms focus on market risk,” Sidana said. “In other words, they’re good at sussing out when a company has traction, and when it makes sense to invest in that opportunity. Whereas what I’m doing now is the exact opposite of that. The thinking is, ‘We know that people would love this if, and only if, someone had a way of solving this problem technically.”
Engineering Capital typically provides the first institutional money in a company, and its investments include Rubrik, Menlo Security, Prismo Systems, Palerra (acquired by Oracle), and Netsil (acquired by Nutanix).
Sidana spoke with Term Sheet about what it means to have a technical insight, navigating the imbalanced market forces in the seed market, and why he believes venture is no longer a lifecycle business. Read the full Q&A here.
TERM SHEET: What are some of the specific characteristics you look for in a founder and company before investing?
SIDANA: I look for the following key elements. First, a technical insight. Every company claims to be a technology company, so I’m talking about a particular subset of that, which is what I define as a “technical insight." By my definition, Google would fall into that category, but Facebook would not.
Second, I’m looking for a business problem which can be solved in a highly-capital efficient way. In my case, these are all software companies, where a team of five to seven people can build a product and bring it all the way to revenue within the seed stage itself. This is unusual in the enterprise space. I believe that a very small, technically-astute, business-savvy team can actually build an enterprise product with a seed round of financing. From a venture strategy perspective, I have bet heavily on this capital-efficient stage of the company.
We’re seeing the emergence of mega-funds. The strategy behind Softbank’s mammoth $100 billion Vision Fund is to identify a market leader, pour hundreds of millions of dollars in it, and remove the constraint of capital. What is your view on that playbook?
SIDANA: I think it’s brilliant. It’s a thoughtful attempt at taking advantage of a gap in the market. I mean, there is no other Softbank. You can name many other alternatives to my fund, you can even name alternatives to Sequoia and Greylock, but there is no alternative to Softbank. There is no one else who can write checks of that size along with that type of risk appetite and willingness to bend the rules in their favor in a way that Softbank has. And I think it will succeed. I am not pessimistic on Softbank.
How will some of these macro-investing trends, such as VC firms raising mega-funds and venture-backed companies staying private longer, affect early-stage startups in the long-run?
SIDANA: That is the golden question. Venture will change from being a lifecycle business to a stage-specific business. That is one of the fundamental changes that will happen. This will affect the strategy of every firm — whether they’re focused just on seed like Engineering Capital or whether they are traditional investors like Sequoia or Benchmark. By “lifecycle business,” I mean the first institutional investor aims to be the largest non-founder owner and is the lead investor from inception through exit, whether by M&A or IPO. And by “stage-specific,” I mean that the lead institutional investor will change over time, prior to exit.
The great example of this is the battle that was fought between Benchmark and [former Uber CEO] Travis Kalanick with Benchmark subsequently selling and Sequoia buying Uber in simultaneous transactions. In other words, one top-tier firm sold and another one bought, prior to IPO. That was not an accident. It will happen again.
Remember, Benchmark is a firm that had a reputation for being founder friendly — for being one of the best firms on the planet to work with. It blew that entire reputation after it sued one of its CEOs.
[On Aug. 10, 2017 Benchmark sued Kalanick and Uber, alleging that Kalanick concealed “gross mismanagement and other misconduct” while procuring three additional seats on the board.]
SIDANA: In either case, as we now know, eventually Travis gave up disproportionate control, Benchmark sold at a discount, SoftBank became the largest shareholder, and Sequoia bought in simultaneous transactions earlier this year. In other words, a top-tier VC firm sold a portion of their all-time best performing investment at a discount, simultaneously while another top-tier VC firm bought, prior to IPO. This was hard to imagine when venture was a lifecycle business. I believe the days when your first VC became your largest institutional owner and stayed that way all the way through IPO or M&A are gone forever.
Some firms have tried to counter this change in the venture business by raising billion dollar mega-funds or parallel growth funds. From an entrepreneur’s perspective, it is difficult to get attention for a $1 million seed investment from a $1 billion fund — hence the emergence of specialized seed funds.
Yesterday, Axios reported that VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is changing its fundraising strategy by moving away from multi-stage, multi-sector flagship vehicles. This supports your point that venture is trending toward a more specialized fund approach. Who stands to benefit from this strategy?
SIDANA: The benefit will accrue to whoever can quickly identify their own unique value in this new landscape, and leverage that to enhance their business. So, for example, a VC firm could build a practice with a focus on a particular sector or stage will be served well. This is why I believe Sequoia has separate early stage and growth teams. Or, why Emergence has always had a SaaS focus.
Founders who recognize that all money is not equal — different firms bring different value — will benefit if they choose their investor partners keeping this in mind. They will also benefit because such focused firms and teams will bring more value than just money to them.
Venture has evolved into a big enough market, startups now take long enough, and need so much capital to IPO, that it supports standalone funds, and even standalone firms focused on sub-parts of the overall venture market.
How do you foresee other firms responding?
SIDANA: Great firms will expand and grow to include different offerings. They will become platforms. From my vantage point, it looks like A16Z, Sequoia and Lightspeed are following this strategy. Not a risk to these great firms, but the danger for other firms may be to over-expand and then they will have to find their religion again in order to get back to basics. Some firms will recognize their specialty and stay focused on that. It seems like Benchmark is staying true to its roots and not expanding. Venture is also not a winner-take-all, nor is it a one-size-fits-all market, so I can see many different models being successful.
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PEOPLE MOVES: VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has added its third female general partner in a matter of three months. Angela Strange, who has been with the firm for more than three years, will oversee fintech alongside general partner Alex Rampell.
Term Sheet recently covered the promotion of Connie Chan, who became the first general partner to get promoted from within the firm. The move meant that Andreessen Horowitz broke its long-standing requirement that general partners need to have operating experience prior to joining. In June, the firm hired Katie Haun, its first female general partner after nearly a decade as an all-male partnership.
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• Women Entrepreneurs Are Optimistic About Their Businesses and the U.S. Economy, Study Finds (by McKenna Moore)
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VENTURE DEALS
• Planday, a Denmark-bases workforce collaboration platform, raised $40 million in Series C funding. SEB Private Equity led the round, and was joined by investors including Creandum and Idinvest.
• KaNDy Therapeutics, a U.K.-based clinical-stage women’s health company, raised 25 million pounds ($32.5 million) in Series C funding. Investors include Longitude Capital, Advent Life Sciences, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Forbion Capital Partners and OrbiMed.
• Pagaya, an Israel-based financial technology company, raised $14 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT and Harvey Golub co-led the round, and were joined by investors including GF Investments, Siam Commercial Bank, Clal Insurance Ltd, and Pagaya’s seed investor, Viola Ventures.
• Mitte, a smart home water system, raised $10.6 million in funding. Investors include Danone Manifesto Ventures, VisVires New Protein Capital, and Kärcher New Venture.
• Apperio, a U.K.-based legal tech startup, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Draper Esprit led the round.
• Metricly, a Washington, DC-based cloud-monitoring and optimization platform, raised $9 million in Series A funding. Investors include Rembrandt Venture Partners and Bowery Capital.
• Paystack, a Nigeria-based payment startup, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Stripe led the round, and was joined by investors including Visa, Tencent and Y Combinator.
• MyCrypto, a Redondo Beach, Calif.-based open-source, client-side tool for interacting with the blockchain, raised $4 million in funding. Polychain Capital led the round.
• Datree, a San Francisco and Tel Aviv-based git-centric operations management platform, raised $3 million in seed funding. The investor was TLV Partners.
• Lunaphore Technologies SA, a Switzerland-based medtech firm developing devices for cancer tissue diagnostics, raised CHF 5.3 million ($5.5 million) in Series B funding. Investors include Occident Group and Zürcher Kantonalbank.
HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES DEALS
• Nebula Genomics, a San Francisco and Boston-based human genome sequencing and health big data company, raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, Fenbushi Capital, Mayfield, F-Prime Capital Partners, Great Point Ventures, Windham Venture Partners, Hemi Ventures, Mirae Asset, Hikma Ventures and Heartbeat Labs.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
• RoadSafe Traffic Systems, which is backed by ORIX Capital Partners and Aperion Management, acquired Optim Earth, a Reno, Nevada-based provider of 3D subsurface information required to plan and build structures, roads, bridges, tunnels and pipelines. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
• Global HR Research, which is backed by Renovo Capital, acquired easyBackgrounds, a Newfields, N.H.-based background screening company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
• Munch’s Supply, a portfolio company of Rotunda Capital Partners, acquired Tommark Company and its six Michigan branches. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
• SpendMend, a portfolio company of Sheridan Capital Partners, acquired Contract Management Strategies, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based provider of audit recovery and professional services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHER DEALS
• News Corp’s subsidiary Move, Inc agreed to acquire Opcity, an Austin, Texas-based real estate technology platform, for $210 million, subject to adjustments.
• Campbell Soup Co (NYSE:CPB) will sell its international businesses and fresh refrigerated-foods unit. Read more at Fortune.
IPOs
• SurveyMonkey, a San Mateo, Calif.-based survey platform, filed for an $100 million IPO. It posted revenue of $218.8 million in 2017 and loss of $24 million. Tiger Global (29.9% pre-offering) and Sheryl Sandberg (9.9%) back the firm. J.P. Morgan, Allen & Company, BofA Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, UBS Investment Bank, and Wells Fargo Securities are underwriters. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “SVMK.” Read more.
• Sutro Biopharma, a San Francisco-based biotech developing immunotherapies for multiple myeloma, filed for a $75 million IPO. It posted revenue of $51.7 million in 2017 and loss of $19.7 million. Merck (12.5% pre-offering), Alta Partners (11.9%), and Skyline Venture Partners (11.9%) back the firm. Cowen and Piper Jaffray are underwriters. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “STRO.” Read more.
EXITS
• Apple Inc acquired Akonia Holographics, a Longmont, Colo.-based startup focused on making lenses for augmented reality glasses. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Akonia had raised more than $11 million in venture funding. The investors were not named. Read more.
PEOPLE
• Natalie Dillon joined Maveron as an investor. Previously, she was at Susa Ventures.
