20VC: Andy McLoughlin on The Benefits of Backing Unsexy Businesses with Non-Obvious Founders, How To Distinguish Between A Good Bridge Round and A Bridge To Nowhere & Whether VCs Really Do Add Value?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2018
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andy McLoughlin is Partner @ Uncork Capital, formerly SoftTech and one of the leading early-stage funds on the West Coast. In their incredible portfolio, they have the likes of Fitbit, SendGrid, PostMates, Front, PoshMark, Eventbrite and many more. As for Andy, he loves to invest in "unsexy ideas" with stellar teams and has led deals in the likes of Postmates, LaunchDarkly, Human Interest (previously Captain 401), and Focal Systems just to name a few. Prior to VC, Andy co-founded Huddle, an enterprise collaboration platform which raised more than $80M in venture funding before its acquisition in 2017. Andy also has a stellar angel portfolio with the likes of Buffer, Intercom and Pipedrive all angel investments.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Andy made the transition from Founder of one of the UK's hottest startups to one of the leading early-stage VCs in Silicon Valley?
2.) Why did Softtech decide to make the big decision to rebrand to Uncork several years into the journey? What is core to successfully relaunching a VC brand to the ecosystem?
3.) Andy likes to back "non-obvious founders" building "non-sexy businesses". What does Andy mean by "non-obvious founder"? How do they tend to behave differently to more seasoned serial entrepreneur founders from the valley? What does a "non-sexy business look like to Andy"? Why does he see such inherent opportunity within these segments?
4.) How does Andy evaluate the challenge of immensely long sales cycles within these industries? How can these be mitigated and measured against? How does this affect Andy's thinking on the right amount of runway to raise for? How does Andy assess the often issue of regulation? How does Andy distinguish between viable/ non-viable?
5.) How does Andy assess VC value add? Where does Andy believe he can provide the most value to his portfolio? Why does Andy believe startups are not just competing against other plays in their space but every startup in the valley?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Andy’s Fave Book: Venture Deals
Andy’s Most Recent Investment: Fritz
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Andy on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two Bs on Instagram. |
| 0:06.5 | And there you can suggest both guests for future episodes and questions for future guests. |
| 0:10.9 | It'd be awesome to see you there. |
| 0:12.4 | However, speaking of guests, some guests are so special that one cannot help but want to have them back on the show for round two. |
| 0:18.3 | And that's very much the case today. |
| 0:19.9 | If you haven't listened to round one, then that really is a must, but I'm so thrilled to welcome back to the |
| 0:24.1 | hot seat today, Andy McLaughlin, partner at Uncourt Capital, formerly SoftTech, and one of the leading |
| 0:29.3 | early stage funds on the West Coast in their incredible portfolio. Check this out. They have the likes of Fitbit, Sendgrid, Postmates, Front, Poshmark, Eventbright, and many more incredible companies. |
| 0:40.2 | As for Andy, he loves to invest in unsexy ideas with stellar teams, and he's led deals in the likes of Postmates, launched darkly, human interests, which was previously Captain 401, and Focal Systems, just to name a few. |
| 0:52.5 | And prior to VC, Andy co-founded Huddle, an enterprise collaboration platform which raised more than |
| 0:57.2 | $80 million in venture funding before its acquisition in 2017. |
| 1:01.6 | Plus, Andy also has a stellar angel portfolio with the lights of buffer, intercommon pipe drive, |
| 1:06.7 | all as angel investments. |
| 1:08.1 | But before we dive into the show today with Andy, I want to talk about a |
| 1:10.9 | product that I really have been looking for for years and just never found until now. Essentially, |
| 1:15.9 | have you ever wished all of your team's relationships were right at your fingertips? Well, |
| 1:19.9 | through patent-pending technology, Affinity is the only platform that analyzes your team's |
| 1:24.4 | communication data and automatically creates the relationship graph you need |
| 1:28.5 | to achieve your business priorities. And you can take it one step further with Affinity Alliances |
| 1:33.1 | to connect with trusted people outside of your organization so you can leverage their relationships |
| 1:38.3 | to score coveted instructions or referrals. And that's why Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of |
| 1:43.6 | top-tier VC firms already |
... |
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