Shillo: VCs refused to invest in digital content startups in late 2000s
Kate Shillo · 20 VC: Investing in Hardware and The Future of IOT with Kate Shillo, Director @ Galvanize Ventures · Jan 13, 2016 · at 9:18
Kate Shillo describes the market landscape when Lerer Ventures was founded and why the firm was able to back digital media and content companies.
0:00 / 0:02exact quote · 2.3s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“No VC would touch content at the time.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Kate Shillo
Shillo: Galvanize's $10.2M fund writes $100K checks and skips follow-ons
“We're no longer doing follow-ons because it doesn't make sense for the size of our fund, which is 10.2 million dollars, and our initial checks are about a 100,000.”
Shillo: NYC tech thrives by connecting legacy industries with new startups
“And that was the whole push that we're now seeing, is that the New York market Is really working, you know, the older industry is really working with the new industry of consumer and e-commerce and content companies that are coming out of the startup world.”
Shillo: Female VCs collaborate on deals significantly more than in the past
“Yeah, but I will say just one thing I've noticed between when I started doing this six or seven years ago till now, is that I'm seeing female VCs start to collaborate quite a bit on deals with each other, which is rad. I'm so psyched about that.”
Shillo: Hardware crowdfunding is primarily for advertising, not raising capital
“I don't think we think of it in terms of crowdfunding. I often think of crowdfunding as a bit of advertising. I mean, it's great to have that money, but chances are they probably raised around a seed round before that. So it's more about validating the custome…”
Shillo: Series A VCs will not invest in hardware before products ship
“I find as I'm an investor, a seed investor in a lot of these and talking to later stage investors, Their hurdle is shipping. If you haven't shipped your product and you can't talk about metric and how customers are engaging with your product, you're, they don'…”
Shillo: BuzzFeed has surpassed Huffington Post in market positioning
“You know, and something like BuzzFeed, which has surpassed Huffington Post, which is a lira investment, and Jonah was one of the founders of Huffington Post, he took what he learned from, you know, so he's been working at this for years and years and years and…”