In this episode, Hall welcomes Karthee Madasamy of MFV Partners. MFV Partners' approach is to back visionary entrepreneurs developing deep technologies and solutions that disrupt traditional verticals and ecosystems across automotive, manufacturing, retail, agriculture and knowledge services. Karthee has been a VC investor for 15 years, following a career as an entrepreneur with an electrical engineering background.

Karthee talks about how technology is disrupting some of the established traditional industries like automotive and agriculture and provides great advice for investors interested in the deep tech space. He discusses the pitfalls of commercialization, and how important it is to think through before you dive in. Karthee emphasizes that startups and investors need to understand how solving a problem in science or engineering will ultimately lead to a product and customer.

In addition, Karthee talks about the evolution of investing in the deep tech space, and how it is often focused on the later stages. He also talks about some of the companies that MFV has worked with, as well as some of the challenges particular to the deep tech space. Finally, Hall and Karthee discuss the state of capital availability in a general sense, and what that might mean for future innovation.

While unforeseen events can overtake a startup, many CEOs simply don’t plan ahead when it comes to fundraising. For every $1M you want to raise, it will take you one calendar year to raise it.

Most of the time, an entrepreneur who approaches me is raising funding today and is looking for a check now. In some cases, they need their funding within the next thirty to sixty days or something bad is going to happen.

Most startups end up educating their investors during the fundraise. But there is another approach one can take.

I once had an entrepreneur come to me saying, “I’m not raising funding now, but in six months I will be. May I keep you informed of our progress?”

Of course, I said yes, because I wanted to see how it turned out.

Over the next six months, the CEO sent me monthly updates about his progress. When he launched his fundraise formally, he was able to close it in just a few months. He used those six months to educate the prospective investors about his deal.

This is a great technique for introducing your deal to a prospective investor. More investors sign up to track along since there’s no pressure to engage in the fundraise.

It takes four touches or more to introduce your deal and educate the investor about it. It’s a good idea to start that process sooner rather than later in your fundraise.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today!