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<ul><li><keyword id="15097710" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Angel-investment-platform-IPV" source="Orion">Angel investment platform IPV</keyword> has 7,295 investors on its platform.</li><li>Average investments of these angel investors is anywhere between Rs 5-7 lakh a year</li><li>More than 10% of IPV’s investments are in startups spread across Tier 2 and 3 towns</li></ul>Technology has democratised many businesses that were earlier the preserve of a few. Angel investing is one such business that has now become relatively more transparent compared to earlier times and even investors with a ticket size of ₹2.5 lakh a year can now become angel investors. The fallout of this is that great businesses and smart founders now have many more avenues to raise capital without the usual runaround. It is this philosophy that is the driving force behind the four-year-old <keyword id="15097711" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="angel-funding-platform" source="Orion">angel funding platform</keyword> <keyword id="7036829" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Inflection-Point-Ventures" source="Orion">Inflection Point Ventures</keyword> (IPV). Vinay Bansal, CEO and founder of IPV, discovered some obvious pain points that both investors and startup founders faced for the smallest of funding rounds. While the process was tedious for the founders, lack of clarity was a big issue for angel investors. These problems also resulted in a low success rate of <keyword id="2023759" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="startups-in-india" source="Orion">startups in India</keyword>. IPV set out to resolve all three issues with its own unique propositions. “We decided to solve these problems and started investing in a few startups with a sharp focus so that the founders could grow. We also provided them with mentorships. Some of these startups include the likes of Milk Basket and Fitso that went on to become very successful.” IPV decided to do things differently to improve the success rate of startups in India, which also improved returns for investors. In less than four years, IPV has invested in 140 companies and the IRRs (internal rate of returns) are significantly higher compared to many others. India has spawned many unicorns in the last three years, as the pandemic led to innovative models to solve problems thrown up by the lockdowns. India saw 44 unicorns emerge in 2021 and the trend continues in 2022, albeit at a slower pace. Interestingly, the startup bug is not just restricted to the big cities. Today, there’s a startup in each of the 625 districts of India and 50% of these come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. IPV is one of the few players that has had its eyes on such players since 2020. Nearly 10% of its portfolio companies come from the hinterland. Born in 2019, this platform has funded some very interesting startups that nobody was willing to bet on – these were from India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, but were solving problems that are unique to the country’s hinterland. The venture platform is agnostic to sector, stage and geography in which the startup is in. What matters to IPV is the quality of the founder, idea and valuation. “Great people can come from anywhere and we took bets on startups nobody was betting on back in 2020. We go by great ideas that can come from anywhere, which is why we funded BluSmart in Ahmedabad and Multibhashi from Jaipur. These founders are sharp, smart and hardworking to their core,” explains Bansal. Thanks to ventures like IPV, television shows like Shark Tank and a media blitzkrieg are helping more startups in Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. What also makes IPV unique is that its model of raising capital is more broad-based, which is why its investments are not held hostage by any funding winter or moves made by the Federal Reserve. “We want to continue to democratise investments for average Indians who have a ticket size of ₹5 lakh.” The platform has 7,295 investors on its platform and it continues to grow. “The way we set ourselves up was to be different from others. We were able to fund even during the pandemic and all these investments are between Series B and D today. We went against the market in 2021 and started exiting from our investments. We don’t work on the dry powder concept as we get funds from salaried investors. Over the last couple of months we have cut million dollar cheques. Winters are good for us as we get access to good companies at better valuations. We have to overcome our fear of investing when others are not,” says Bansal. The average ticket size that the angel investors cut out each year ranges between ₹5-7 lakh. IPV’s investors come from not just India but also from other countries. To invest, all that the angel investors need to do is fill a form and get started. The process is equally easy for startups that need funding. IPV replies to founders within 20 days of sending an application. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/rupee-headed-lower-as-rbi-intervention-unlikely-to-be-aggressive/articleshow/94473133.cms">Rupee headed lower as RBI intervention unlikely to be “aggressive’</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/indian-markets-take-a-breather-after-huge-sell-off-on-monday/articleshow/94468819.cms">Indian markets take a breather after huge sell-off on Monday</a>

Inflection Point Ventures’ focus on great founders takes it to Tier 2 & 3 towns

<ul><li><keyword id="15023564" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="moneyplanned" source="Orion">MoneyPlanned</keyword> is an Indian personal finance platform that helps clients automate their financial goals. </li><li>The round was led by <keyword id="7036829" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="inflection-point-ventures" source="Orion">Inflection Point Ventures</keyword>, with participation from California-based startup accelerator <keyword id="15023565" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="expert-dojo" source="Orion">Expert Dojo</keyword>, Joseph R Saviano – partner at Dot Capital, New York, and <keyword id="241332" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="sameer-khan" source="Orion">Sameer Khan</keyword>, executive director corporate <keyword id="6374832" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="treasury" source="Orion">treasury</keyword>, <keyword id="133737" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="dbs-bank" source="Orion">DBS Bank</keyword>, Singapore. </li><li>MoneyPlanned currently has 10,000 weekly active users and 35,000 monthly active users, with the platform collectively tracking financial goals worth ₹ 6,500 crore. </li></ul> Fintech company MoneyPlanned on Monday raised over ₹2.5 crore in a seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The other investors who participated in the round include California-based startup accelerator Expert Dojo, Joseph R Saviano – partner at Dot Capital, New York and Sameer Khan – executive director corporate treasury, DBS Bank, Singapore. Founded in July 2020 by Sameer Shashank Gattupalli and Nikhila Putcha, MoneyPlanned is a fintech platform assisting clients to automate their financial goals. The funds raised will be used for marketing and user acquisition, deepening the tech infrastructure and expanding the tech and business teams. “India has a large base of salaried people with more youngsters joining the workforce every year. Financial planning is not a luxury anymore but a necessity, that's one of the biggest lessons from the Covid pandemic. MoneyPlanned’s platform is built to offer a personalised service at scale. At IPV, we invest in businesses that have the ability to scale while maintaining a healthy business matrix,” <keyword id="6342098" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="vinay-bansal" source="Orion">Vinay Bansal</keyword>, Founder CEO, Inflection Point Ventures, said. MoneyPlanned currently has 10,000 weekly active users and 35,000 monthly active users, with the platform collectively tracking financial goals worth ₹ 6,500 crores. The founders aim to build an advanced financial planning platform powered through technologies like AI and blockchain that performs like an in-person financial planner. According to a survey conducted by <keyword id="6355630" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="securities-and-exchange-board-of-india" source="Orion">Securities and Exchange Board of India</keyword>, only 27% of India's population is financially literate. The ratio of advisors to investors is only 1:76000, which can be solved using technology, states MoneyPlanned. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/amazon-great-indian-festival-sale-best-deals-and-offers/articleshow/94004700.cms">Amazon Great Indian Festival sale announced – card offers, cashback, new launches and more</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/call-of-duty-warzone-mobile-announced-heres-how-to-pre-register-on-android/articleshow/94297494.cms">Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile announced — here’s how to pre-register on Android</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/anil-agarwal-profile-vedanta-resources-listing-in-london-stock-exchange-gujarat-semiconductor-chipset-plant/articleshow/94297057.cms">Anil Agarwal – how a Bihar boy who knew only ‘yes’ and ‘no’ went onto list the first Indian company on London Stock Exchange</a>

Fintech company MoneyPlanned raises over ₹2.5 crore from Inflection Point Ventures, others

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Lucia Polverino landed a coveted role as a venture capital analyst in London in her early 20s.</li><li>She said her experiences in PR and product management were instrumental in this transition.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Lucia Polverino, a 24-year-old analyst at a venture capital firm based in London. Business Insider has verified her employment. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I was always passionate about getting into the workplace as quickly as possible after university. After graduating, I dabbled in a career in public relations and product management before landing my role as a venture capital analyst — but my varied experiences helped me get to this point.My first office job was a placement in my first year at university, where I studied for a degree in business administration. I worked at Piper Sandler, an American investment bank. I spent six months in their healthcare M&amp;A division. It was a really good first formative experience, but it was challenging.My next placement was in my third year of university. I worked at KKR in their private credit team. But because this happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to be proactive as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recent-college-grad-quit-dream-job-work-from-home-2024-4">we weren't in the office</a>, and try to get my colleagues to give me more work to do. It was a really valuable experience.After graduating, I was adamant I wanted to try something less corporate. My first job out of university was at a tech PR firm. I've always been interested in entrepreneurship, media, and communications. It was a 15-person team when I joined, which made for a startup-like environment — very entrepreneurial and dynamic. I worked with eight clients across AI, cyber security, e-commerce, and business-to-business sectors. That was an inflection point because it diverted my career toward the tech world.I loved working with tech companies and startups, so after nine months, I decided to go in-house and work at a tech company. As a recent graduate, I was still eligible for roles targeted toward recent university graduates which provide a structured career path into a particular sector. I loved the sound of product management. You can work with a bunch of different teams, such as engineering, marketing, and UX; this was similar to the way I worked in PR with different clients. I was lucky enough to secure a grad job in the product team at ICIS, which is a data team within LexisNexis, a software company.My job in product management was instrumental in leading me to venture capital. I understood the key levers in a tech company that influence its growth. I've always liked wearing different hats, and these threads led me to join Playfair, a generalist VC fund.<h2 id="371fbf1a-872d-41fd-a6a6-311ea68a2add">I was so surprised at how relevant my PR experience was</h2>I was so surprised at how relevant my PR experience was because so much of VC is investor relations. It's really important to form friendships with investors, not just transactional relationships. Equally, because I was working with tech companies in my PR role, it was easy to verbalize and justify why I loved tech companies and working with startups in my interview. It's really important for young people in interviews to bring in their past experiences and talk about how it will help them be good candidates.For <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/day-in-the-life-of-gen-z-vc-in-london-2022-7">young people who want to apply to VC</a>, it's really important to figure out the kind of fund you want to apply for. If your background is generalist and diverse, that kind of VC fund would likely suit you. But if you started your career with a technical background, you'd perhaps be suited to a deep tech fund. You should understand where you will add the most value.Being a pandemic graduate also made me less worried about finding a linear career path and sticking to it for five years. During the pandemic, I thought, who knows what will happen in six months? Nothing was certain — it seemed like the pandemic would never end. This impacted my mindset, and I was more willing to take risks and figure out what I actually liked. I think it's also more of a Gen Z trend because we are <a target="_blank" href="https://fortune.com/2024/04/23/gen-zers-millennials-job-switching-accelerating-pros-cons-careers-employment/">more likely to job-hop</a> than previous generations.<h2 id="a0326792-b564-4676-ac2d-e5686145c0cd">You don't need a background in investment banking to get into VC anymore</h2>It may have been true in the past that you need an investment banking background to get into VC, but that's not the case anymore. I've met more people that don't come from banking than do. In my case, at a pre-seed fund, making a financial model from scratch would be less useful a skill to have.VC is such a broad industry — and your experience will be shaped by what stage your fund invests in. The hiring managers usually like young people who have had startup experience, such as being an operator. I've also met so many people who come from software engineering and technical backgrounds and work at deep tech funds. I've also met a lot of people coming from NGO and charity backgrounds. This ultimately speaks to the sector you may want to specialize in once you get into VC.You could also show you have an entrepreneurial mindset to some degree. My hiring managers loved that I had a fashion blog when I was at university and that I would reach out to brands to partner with for my videos. It's really important to show that you love entrepreneurship and working with founders.Try to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-recruiters-hiring-staffing-tech-job-wall-street-headhunters-2024-4">leverage recruiters</a> if you can. At Playfair, we have a very transparent hiring process, and the fund markets the position as much as possible — but that's not the same for all VC funds. I found my job through a recruiter called JumpStart, and it's a very helpful avenue for younger grads.

I landed a job in venture capital at 24 after changing my career path twice. Here's how I got the coveted job with a varied résumé.  

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Business Insider's Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists are created based on data from Termina.</li><li>Termina began with data on over 1,800 investors, analyzing 25 success attributes, such as exits.</li></ul>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/seed-100-best-early-stage-vc-investors-2024-5">Seed 100</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/seed-40-best-women-early-stage-vc-investors-2024-5">Seed 40</a> lists are derived from a statistical analysis of investor track records. We've been working with Business Insider to publish these lists for the past four years, but this is the first year we're doing so under the <a target="_blank" href="https://termina.ai">Termina</a> brand. Incubated by Tribe Capital, Termina is an AI-software platform that powers quantitative due diligence for leading investors around the world.Our methodology is the same as it was in past years. It analyzes each investor's performance in 25 areas using Crunchbase and PitchBook data. Since one of our goals is to analyze investor's potential success rather than focus solely on past achievements, we only assess investors who have made a minimum of five investments between 2009 and 2024. Our list includes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solo-capitalists-startup-investors-shaking-up-venture-capital-2021-9">solo venture capitalists</a> and angel investors who are assessed based on their investments in US companies.To be named to the list, seed investors must have:<ol><li>Investments that performed well, including successful IPOs or acquisitions (exits that were meaningfully above "liquidation preference" or showed increased company value rather than simply raising capital).</li><li>Show intermediate signs of future success with seed investments that consistently receive follow-on investment.</li><li>Be active in the seed-investing ecosystem, with moderate-to-high levels of activity over the past two years.</li></ol>Though each criterion is weighted equally, exits (IPOs or acquisitions) statistically have the most influence in differentiating investors.Over 1,800 investors met the above criteria, an 18% increase from last year. The seed-investor ecosystem grows every year, making the list more competitive. We're also delighted that there were 187 female candidates with sufficient data, a significant increase that allowed us to release an expanded Seed 40 list this year. Ten percent of all seed investors in scope were women, up from 8% when the first Seed 100 was released in 2021.The final rankings had 35 new investors, 21 who improved their rank, and 39 with the same or lower rank as last year.<h2>AI is storming seed investing and beyond</h2>One reason we look at seed-stage investments is because they tend to be leading indicators of innovation in the coming years. OpenAI released their GPT-4 model just over a year ago. The model reached an inflection point of capability that has ignited the imagination of entrepreneurs and investors worldwide. The result in just one year is the largest-ever rebalancing of how investors allocate seed capital across sectors. In our analysis, AI tech receives over 16% of all seed-investing capital, with a significant jump in the 12 months following GPT-4's release.In the chart below, we show five seed-investment categories to contextualize the growth of AI investment. This is not an exhaustive view of seed-investment sectors. In this view, though there has been a steady expansion of AI investing at the seed stage, the jump last year clearly stands out.<div type="image" title="For Seed 100 methodology post" height="637" width="1600" msid="109881431" hostid="261" sizebytes="52084"></div>We believe AI will allow more seed-stage companies to bring products to market with less capital, similar to how cloud computing accelerated processes and reduced the capital required to launch products. If true, this will make seed-stage investing even more critical as AI begins to form the infrastructure that launches new tech products and services.Jake Ellowitz is the chief technology officer and cofounder of Termina.

How Termina selected and ranked the 2024 Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists of the top early-stage venture capitalists

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Menlo VenturesMenlo Ventures partner Jean-Paul Sanday</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/menlo-ventures-shawn-carolan-uber-2019-4">Menlo Ventures</a> announced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/menlo-ventures-shawn-carolan-uber-2019-4">Jean-Paul Sanday would join the firm to lead its new "inflection stage" fund in August</a>.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">The former growth equity investor also led growth teams at two startups, an experience he says makes him uniquely positioned to advise startups just starting to hit the rocky <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-focused-on-health-tech-first-round-jumpstart-foundry-2019-8">inflection point around a Series B or Series C funding round</a>.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">According to Sanday, young startups are hitting this inflection point earlier than ever due to an increase in size of early funding rounds and availability of venture capital. That makes it even more important to advise new founders on crucial details like hiring, marketing, and customer experience, he said.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">Sanday also said many investors writing $100 million checks don't empathize with founders struggling to manage a quickly growing business, setting everyone up for a contentious relationship down the road.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>.</li></ul>The massive funding rounds going to startups aren't just squeezing out early-stage investors. They're forcing companies to grow at all costs, whether or not the founders are ready for it.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/menlo-ventures-shawn-carolan-uber-2019-4">Menlo Ventures</a> has created a fund dedicated solely to these founders called an "inflection fund." Instead of trying to beat mega-funds to the seed funding punch, Menlo is banking on its track record and expertise to offer founders a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-focused-on-health-tech-first-round-jumpstart-foundry-2019-8">guiding light around a Series B or Series C stage</a>. And in August, the firm brought on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/menlo-ventures-shawn-carolan-uber-2019-4">former growth equity investor Jean-Paul Sanday</a> to lead the charge."Our average check at the fund I worked on at Summit was $30 [million], $35 [million], or $40 million. Now it's $130 million," Sanday told Business Insider. "The businesses are just different businesses, but they still need help no sooner or no later than before."Read More: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/accel-amy-saper-investor-early-twitter-and-stripe-employee-2019-9">An early employee of Twitter and Stripe is joining Accel to hunt for the next generation of first-time founders</a>Having been on both the investing and startup side, Sanday is a <keyword id="46801" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="prime">prime</keyword> candidate to help Menlo Ventures' portfolio companies navigate what he calls the "rocky" inflection point in growth. According to Sanday, a startup has hit the inflection point once the recruiting team starts receiving resumes unsolicited, customer growth is outpacing what would be expected based on the team's marketing budget, and customer experience plummets.In the past, this stage was reserved for a company that had been around for several years, Sanday explained. But with the sudden influx of funding, immature founders are finding themselves with ballooning costs, teams, and issues without understanding how to actually address any of them."The businesses can grow up really fast or get a lot of traction in the headline numbers really quickly," Sanday said. "They have a lot of employees, a lot of revenue, but their maturity is no different, right? Most of the entrepreneurial journey is knowing how to do that." <h2>An insider's growth mindset</h2>Sanday came to Silicon Valley like many other investors-to-be: he enrolled at Stanford, and eventually started a mobile ads company with a classmate while he was finishing business school. "We decided not to raise money for it because it was a mobile ads network and, at the time, that was like the Wild West and there's all kinds of messy in that industry," Sanday said. Still intrigued by the burgeoning mobile industry, Sanday moved over to a mobile gaming startup to run the young company's growth operation. He said during his tenure, the company went from being "five people working out of a garage" to over 250 employees in "an actual office." Although he's written plenty of hefty investment checks during two runs at private equity firm Summit Partners, Sanday says his most valuable experience was experiencing that inflection point first hand."At this stage there's so much more uncertainty," Sanday said. "You can have a differentiating perspective, a different angle, certainly in the way you can help them,but I also think there's room for you to lean in more."Sanday will be doling out checks ranging from $20 million to $40 million, with room for follow on investments, through the inflection fund. Having just returned from paternity leave, he has not personally invested just yet. "My bones speak to me and sometimes there are just things that I can just know about or empathize with just simply as a party to the founder," Sanday said. "It's hard when you're writing a $100 million checks to empathize like that. Some of the entrepreneurs haven't done this before, so they don't know what those companies look like." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-review-wireless-headphones-sound-quality-battery-life-2019-8">AirPods are the best-selling wireless headphones, but their sound quality, battery life, and environmental impact could be better</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Too much success can kill a startup. Meet Menlo Ventures' new 'inflection stage' fund that helps young startups dealing with late-stage problems.

New Delhi, June 10 (IANS) Microsoft venture fund M12 on Wednesday announced it has opened its office in Bengaluru to pursue investment opportunities, focusing on B2B software startups in applied AI, business applications, infrastructure, security and vanguard technologies. M12, that arrived in the country in February last year, aims to invest in disruptive enterprise software startups in the Series A through C funding stages, targeting both local and cross-border solutions. "We see the greatest hurdles in a startup's journey as they scale from local success to global challengers, and then again when they go on to become category leaders. M12 is proud to be co-located in the region, and to bring experience and resources that will help startups successfully navigate these inflection points," said Abhi Kumar, India Lead for M12. The introduction of M12 (formerly known as Microsoft Ventures) in is creating new value for startups, VCs and the company itself to maintain the pace and direction of innovation. The company said that local presence is a step forward in M12's long-term commitment to the Indian startup ecosystem. The Bengaluru office joins an M12 network that includes San Francisco, Seattle, London, and Tel Aviv. M12 current portfolio in India includes category leaders such as Innovaccer and FarEye. Post-investment, the startups in M12's portfolio can elect to work with the fund's Portfolio Development team, which is dedicated to unlocking growth opportunities. Since its global launch in 2016, M12 has invested in 90 companies. --IANS na/

Microsoft venture fund M12 opens office in India

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Brendan McDermid/ReutersAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos.</div></div></div><ul><li>Healthcare professionals surveyed by venture capital firm Venrock are skeptical about the new healthcare venture JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway have formed. </li><li>Of the 300 people surveyed, 73% expected it to take longer than expected, with 25% saying the companies "have no idea what they're getting into."</li><li>There have been relatively few details about the venture and what it looks like, but the news alone sent healthcare <a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/healthcare-stocks-smoked-jpmorgan-amazon-and-berkshire-hathaway-team-up-2018-1-1014555404">stocks plummeting</a> in January after it was announced. </li></ul>Healthcare experts have their doubts about the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jpmorgan-and-berkshire-hathaway-healthcare-company-details-2018-1">new venture JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway</a> are forming.The venture, announced in January, is aimed at lowering healthcare costs for the companies' employees, though there haven't been many details about what that looks like. At the time, news of the partnership sent healthcare <a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/healthcare-stocks-smoked-jpmorgan-amazon-and-berkshire-hathaway-team-up-2018-1-1014555404">stocks plummeting</a>, especially health insurers and members of the pharmaceutical supply chain who might be impacted by the three business giants getting into their lines of work. But those who have been in the healthcare industry for a while are skeptical of the speed at which the venture could potentially threaten existing healthcare companies. Of the 300 healthcare professionals, large employers, investors, and academics surveyed by<a href="http://hcprognosis2018.venrock.com/"> venture capital firm Venrock</a>, 73% thought that it's going to take a lot longer than expected and face many challenges.In particular, 25% of those surveyed said that the companies "have no idea what they're getting into." "Oftentimes somebody bringing a new lens leads to great change, and sometimes someone bringing a new lens to things means they fall in the same hole that everybody else has fallen in previously," Venrock partner Bryan Roberts said.It remains to be seen how the JPMorgan-Amazon-Berkshire Hathaway healthcare venture will unfold. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, for his part, seems to have a long-term view of the venture. He said in his annual letter that he plans to report on the venture's progress "in the coming years." The venture's expected to pick a CEO in the next two months, <a href="https://www.axios.com/amazon-1524581009-2da16ad3-e83e-4f89-9e95-b306e087fb3c.html">Axios reported Tuesday</a>.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/future-of-zelle-venmo-and-p2p-payments?IR=T&amp;utm_source=businessinsider&amp;utm_medium=ctgr&amp;utm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_content=payments_ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_campaign=payments_ctgr_leadgen_future-of-zelle"></a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/market-inflection-earnings-valuations-what-to-watch-jurrien-timmer-2018-4">The market is about to reach an inflection point - here's how to predict which way it's going to go</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Healthcare experts are skeptical about Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway's new venture

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SoFi/photos/a.260836540673075/1512440202179363/?type=3&amp;theater">Facebook/SoFi</a></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>We asked top venture capitalists from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and Edison Partners to share their fin-tech predictions for 2019.</li><li>Major themes include the rebundling of financial services, disruption in the insurance industry, and growing financial inclusion.</li></ul>Venture capital investments in fin-tech reached a new high in 2018, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-companies-venture-funding-in-2018-2019-1">with $11 billion pouring into startups </a>that are trying to disrupt financial incumbents.Business Insider spoke with fintech investors from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Bain Capital, and Edison Partners to find out which themes they're excited about this year.<h2>Rebundling</h2>Disruption in financial services has been largely focused on the concept of unbundling banking products. While consumers historically went to Wells Fargo or JPMorgan for top-to-bottom banking services, fintech startups like robo-advisor Betterment and online lender Kabbage have emerged to attack specific pain points that exist within these banks, such as hefty fees for personal-finance advisers, slow cross-border payments, and cumbersome process associated with securing bank loans.But as some of these fin-techs get larger, they'll become more of a threat to big banks, said Mark Goldberg, a partner at Index Ventures. "We're at this inflection point where we're going to start seeing rebundling," he said, noting that some early fintech winners are starting to build such large and loyal user bases that they are going to launch new products linking the services together.<a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/wall-st-insider&amp;hash=f4e91136c13f3c40c496d77bc7347502">Sign up here</a> for our weekly Wall Street Insider newsletter, a behind-the-scenes look at the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals."From an investing standpoint, we push ourselves to look at late-stage private round and think how big a company could become - if it becomes the next bank," he said.One example is N26, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/n26-launching-in-us-in-2019-2018-10">the German digital bank that has recently raised $300 million </a>to launch its mobile banking services in the US market. The company, which started initially by offering a mobile-only banking account, is now trying to integrate other features from credit products to expense tracking into an app.Chris Sugden, a managing director at Edison Partners, agrees.Consumers are "looking now for how can I get all the things I need for my banking or financial services in one place?" he said.<h2>Insurtech </h2>Strict regulations in the US have largely stymied the ability of the insurance industry to innovate, particularly compared to other areas within financial services such as payments and wealth management."While this is true of any regulated business, insurance, notably in the United States, has its patchwork approach to regulation driven by state insurance commissioners," said Matt Harris, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures."As a result, building a nationwide, disruptive, and game-changing insurance product company has no minimum viable product. Instead, you have to tangle with regulators from day one if you're going to make meaningful changes. This factor was one of the main reasons that insurance was the last part of 'fin-tech' to get moving."But this has started to change. New companies have emerged trying to disrupt the insurance industry, from health-insurance startups like Oscar and Devoted to property and casualty insurer like Lemonade and Metromile, to wealth-tech companies like Ladder and Halo.<h2>Financial inclusion</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-unbanked-population-in-6-charts-2017-8">About 2 billion adults across the globe remain unbanked</a>, meaning they don't have access a bank account. And in the US <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/">one government study</a> estimated that 32 million of households were unbanked or underbanked in 2017.Sugden of Edison Partners expects financial inclusion, or the ability to make mainstream financial services accessible at affordable costs, to be the next major theme for fin-tech startups."What you'll start to see is democratization, or inclusion," he said. "The idea is that the individuals on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum - lower earners, possibly with lower creditworthiness - are going to get access to financial services through fin-tech providers that have a much lower cost of provisioning and a much more robust and flexible tech stack."Angela Strange, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, says this goes beyond helping people avoid financial fees. A wide variety of new companies are emerging to increase gross income for lower-wage people. This includes <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/betterment-partnering-with-steady-for-gig-economy-2018-12">powering the gig economy to help people find short-term work</a>, as well as providing training programs to help workers sharpen professional skills and secure higher-paying jobs.<h2>Cryptocurrencies</h2>The superhot crypto space had a rough 2018, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-bitcoin-crashing-2018-11">with bitcoin's price falling below $4,000 per coin from a high of $20,000 the year before</a>.The headwinds that the crypto market suffered last year made it easier for Index Venture's Goldberg to understand what works, and what doesn't."Our investment philosophy in crypto has been watch it opportunistically, follow great founders who we know from other industries into the space," Goldberg said. "That is how we will continue looking at in 2019.""We are really at it from the micro level of, can we find exceptional people to back? And if they happen to choose to go into the space, that is probably how we will invest." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-world-economic-forum-founder-shares-the-biggest-threat-to-the-economy-davos-2019-1">The founder of the World Economic Forum shares what he sees as the biggest threat to the global economy</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Top venture investors tell us the 4 biggest fin-tech themes they're watching in 2019

India’s mobile Internet ecosystem is currently at an inflection point. And a unit of Maverick Capital, a 21 year-old US hedge fund, has leveraged this changing situation to enter India after it agreed to <keyword id="47916" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="invest">invest</keyword> in <keyword id="713876" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Vserv">Vserv</keyword>, the smart data platform for mobile marketing in India and South East Asia. Vserv, which was co-founded in 2010 by <keyword id="897115" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Dippak-Khurana">Dippak Khurana</keyword> and Ashay Padwal, has grown to an organisation that employs 200 people in its offices across India and South East Asia. Matthew Kinsella, managing director, <keyword id="2749979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Maverick-Capital-Ventures">Maverick Capital Ventures</keyword>, said, “We are highly impressed with the rapid pace of Vserv’s growth, its smart data platform and management team. Vserv is uniquely positioned to drive the mobile Internet ecosystem in India and South East Asia through their exceptional data assets.” Dippak Khurana, co-founder &amp; CEO, Vserv, said, “Maverick has a successful history of investing early in large scale mobile platforms globally. We are delighted to be their first <keyword id="6357097" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="venture-capital">venture capital</keyword> investment in India as they bring capital and deep technology domain expertise.” This partnership between Vserv and Maverick Capital Ventures builds on the latter’s extensive history of successfully investing and supporting mobile businesses globally to become large scale platforms. With this investment, Vserv has raised a total of $18 million to date, including its first round of $3 million which it raised from <keyword id="145352" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="IDG-Ventures-India">IDG Ventures India</keyword>. 

	Manik Arora, founder &amp; MD, IDG Ventures India, said, “As an early investor in Vserv, IDG welcomes Maverick as a valued co-investor. We are delighted to further support the company as it goes into high gear.” 
 

	By 2018, the Internet user base in India alone is expected to zoom to 500 million users from currently existing 200 million users. This is primarily driven by mobile users who are expected to contribute over 80% of this base.
 With rich data profiles of more than 120 million mobile Internet users in India, Vserv has strategically positioned itself to deliver mobile marketing for over 500 clients. These clients belong to sectors like consumer goods, e-commerce, retail, telecom, banking &amp; <keyword id="6354241" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Financial-Services">financial services</keyword>, mobile entertainment and gaming. (Image: Vserv)

Mumbai-based Vserv raises $15 million from Maverick Capital Ventures

JigsawJigsaw VC founders Dan Jones and Dan Smith<ul class="summary-list"><li>Jigsaw VC is a new $75 million early-stage investment vehicle founded by former Global Founders Capital investor Dan Jones and ex-Anthemis Exponential VC Dan Smith. </li><li>The pair have previously invested in companies such as Canva, Revolut, Monese, and Unmind. </li><li>Jigsaw wants to use hedge fund-style "alternative data" including behavioral data and data science to discover the best founders. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>.</li></ul>Two prominent European venture capital investors are forming a new $75 million early-stage fund to find the best tech startups. Dan Jones and Dan Smith, formerly of Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Anthemis' Exponential fund respectively, are planning on bringing hedge fund-style "alternative data" to the world of venture capital. "Similar to the transformative effect that alternative data and software has had on the hedge fund industry, we strongly believe that the intersection of data and private companies over the past few years provides an inflection point for venture capital to undergo a similar renaissance," Jones told Business Insider in an interview."VC investors get paid to invest in tech and innovation but don't apply that same lens when looking inwardly at how to run a top decile fund. We aim to be the Bridgewater of venture capital."It's quite the comparison. Founded by legendary investor Ray Dalio in 1975, Bridgewater Capital focused on quantitative analysis of macro market themes, emphasizing specific and previously uncorrelated return factors to make investment decisions. The fund is now one of the largest in the world, and Jones hopes Jigsaw can make similar innovations in venture capital.Jones and Smith have a strong record of fintech investing having invested in over 30 companies in the space. The former was a partner at GFC and was also part of the investment team at Eight Roads, the venture arm of Fidelity, as well as a venture investor at Northzone. Specifically, the pair will seek to identify talent using data, including signals from behavioural science and even psychographic testing of founders.Traditionally, the two say, founders are referred by connections in a VC's network and can sometimes subscribe to certain stereotypes or reflect an investor's biases, making the definition of talent limited. Jigsaw will seek to become "talent investors" by correlating available data on founders at the pre-seed and seed stage to improve outcomes. The plan is also to support founders from the pre-investment stage onwards."Even the tier one VC funds can't consistently access the best available founders and startups at the early stage. This is due to the sheer volume of opportunities across an increasingly fragmented European landscape whilst simultaneously faced with more diversity of founder archetypes than ever before," Smith said. "The economic model of backing winners is hard and so a data-led investment thesis helps us scale."Using data to improve outcomes in venture capital is still a relatively nascent area. The data on private companies can be poor, making accurate conclusions difficult. Similarly, companies at the pre-seed and seed stage tend not to be revenue-generating. That may make a data-led approach riskier, something Jigsaw will need to overcome by corralling its own signals.Previous investments by the pair include companies such as Canva, Revolut, Monese, and Unmind. The $75 million early-stage fund can be scaled to $100 million if needed while a secondary Jigsaw "opportunities vehicle" of an undisclosed size will be used to support some of the pair's prior investments. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salomon-recycles-shoes-ski-boots-2020-2">How running shoes can be recycled into ski boots</a></h3>

Two prominent European investors say hedge fund-style alternative data will give them an edge over rival VCs. 'We want to be the Bridgewater of venture capital.'

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Thomson ReutersAn employee inspects the leaf of a cannabis plant at a medical marijuana plantation in northern Israel</div></div></div><ul><li>Casa Verde Capital is leading a $1 million seed round into Cannalysis, a cannabis-lab testing company.</li><li>Cannalysis tests both medical and recreational cannabis for potency, chemical residue, industrial solvents, pesticides, and microbes in the California market, with plans to expand.</li><li>California is developing lab testing regulations for all cannabis sold within the state.</li></ul> A venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage ancillary investments in the cannabis industry is funding a cannabis lab-testing company that is looking to take on the massive California market.<a href="http://www.casaverdecapital.com/">Casa Verde</a>, which counts the rapper-turned-entertainer Snoop Dogg among its partners, led a $1 million round into <a href="https://www.cannalysislabs.com/">Cannalysis</a>, a "tech-forward," cannabis lab that tests medical and recreational cannabis products for potency, chemical residue, industrial solvents, pesticides, and unwanted microbes like E. coli or yeast.Cannalysis also offers dispensaries an online portal and directly integrates with <a href="https://weedmaps.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WeedMaps</a>, an online dispensary locator."We are at an inflection point for this industry and we are ready to expand," Cannalysis CEO Brian Lannon said in a statement to Business Insider. "Having a marquee investor and strategic partner like Casa Verde, will be instrumental in helping us achieve our growth objectives."Karan Wadherwara, the managing partner at Casa Verde, called Cannalysis "one of the leading lab platforms," in California."This approach has also positioned Cannalysis to quickly scale and establish JV partners around the country," Wadherwara said.California's recreational cannabis market will open on January 1, 2018. The state's Bureau of Cannabis Control mandates that all medical cannabis be lab-tested for specific levels of pesticides and other chemicals, and is developing rules for the recreational side of the industry.While the federal government still considers cannabis illegal, a new report from the Brightfield Group, a market research firm for the cannabis industry, predicts that the global cannabis market will hit $7.7 billion by 2017, and $31.4 billion by 2021. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hackers-can-compromise-your-computer-monitor-darkly-cybersecurity-ssl-mr-robot-red-balloon-security-2017-11">Hackers can gain access to your computer monitor - a cybersecurity expert shows us how easy it is</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Snoop Dogg's venture capital firm is leading an investment in a cannabis lab-testing company

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:395px"><div class="image"></div>Microsoft</div><keyword id="1753411" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Debra-Chrapaty">Debra Chrapaty</keyword> just announced that she's leaving <keyword id="188699" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Zynga">Zynga</keyword> to become the CEO of <keyword id="1753412" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nirvanix">Nirvanix</keyword>, a well-funded <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword> startup backed by Square investor <keyword id="130474" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Khosla-Ventures">Khosla Ventures</keyword>.
She was happy at Zynga, she told Business Insider, but left for two reasons. First, before she became CIO of Zynga in 2011, she had the career goal of becoming a CEO. And second, renowned venture capitalist <keyword id="76921" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vinod-Khosla">Vinod Khosla</keyword>, an old friend, called her and personally recruited her for Nirvanix.
Khosla had been wanting her to become Nirvanix's CEO since November. That's when she agreed to join the company as its chairman. The CEO role seemed to be custom-made for Chrapaty. Nirvanix is a cloud-computing service provider for enterprises. It's claim to fame is storage, providing things like backups and archives. 
Chrapaty has a long history building out cloud-computing services, first at Microsoft and then at Zynga.
She's actually been a powerhouse tech executive since the late 1990s when she was CIO of E*Trade. She also spent about 18 months at Cisco, running its multibillion-dollar Collaboration business unit.
Here's an edited transcript of our conversation.
BUSINESS INSIDER: You're known these day for your role at Zynga but you spent far more time Microsoft, seven years. How did you get that job?
DEBRA CHRAPATY: I got a call from Gia Scinto, still a good friend, who was a recruiter at Microsoft and is now a recruiter for Andreessen Horowitz. She said, "Sometimes at Microsoft we have great jobs and find great executives. Sometimes we find great executives and find great jobs for them. You're a great executive and I'm going to find you a great job at Microsoft." And she did.
I was there seven years and I ran all their data centers and networks, billion of dollars of infrastructure at mass scale. I loved it but my partner <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ramona-pierson/4/627/197">[Ramona Pierson]</a> had created a startup. Her board wanted her in the Bay Area and we were really sick of the rain.
BI: So you moved to Cisco, right when it was having one of its roughest years ever? What was that like?
DC: Microsoft was definitely a technically-lead culture, unlike Cisco which is a sales driven culture. I enjoyed my time at Cisco. Chambers is a wonderful person and I really felt like when I joined Cisco I was part of a connected culture.
It was just a tough inflection point for the company at the time. I think that John needed to retrench and he did. When he did, I didn't feel I was right for the business. No hard feelings. 
I got the phone call saying, "Do I want to be CIO of Zynga?" and I did. I loved every minute of it.
BI: So why did you leave Zynga?
DC: Prior to Zynga, after Cisco, I thought that my next job should be CEO. But when I got the call for Zynga I thought, why would I want to miss that phenomenon? So I took the job.
I wasn't looking for a job. I knew [Vinod] Khosla for many years. He came back a few months ago and thought Nirvanix could use my leadership. I wasn't ready to make a change, so I took the job as chairman of the board. This is about personal growth. It's time for me to be CEO.
BI: You joined Zynga when it was super hot. It's been troubled since then. What can you tell us about that?
DC: People see Zynga as a mature company, now that it's public, but it's still a really young company, not quite six years old. Young companies have fits and starts. It's still really a startup. It had a dramatic rise, scaled up very quickly. Like at Cisco, it's retrenching.
We forget when companies are at $200, $300 a share that many companies go through these ups and downs. Great companies. Zynga is in that phase. We remember when Amazon was at $10 a share and now look at it.
I think that Zynga has great leadership and they'll figure it out.

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