20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2016

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hadley Harris is the Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures, the first seed stage venture fund focussed exclusively on mobile. Eniac's investments include the likes of Soundcloud, Airbnb, Elevate and many more incredible mobile first companies. Before Eniac, Hadley was a two-time entrepreneur in the mobile space, as an executive at Vlingo, acquired by Nuance Communications for $225m and after Vlingo he became CMO of Thumb, which was acquired by Ypulse. Hadley also worked at Charles River Ventures where he spent time helping with mobile investments while looking for a young startup to join. As if his portfolio does not prove enough of what a seed stage investing legend he is, he was also named by Business Insider as 'New York's Best Early Stage Investor'.

A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Hadley made it into startups and the investing industry?

2.) What does an engineering degree provide when investing? Why did Eniac decide to focus solely on mobile?

2.) How has Hadley seen the NY venture and startup scene develop over the last years? Does an ecosystem need anchor companies to be great? Ex-Googlers, and ex-Facebook, ex-LinkedIn, ex-Sun, etc. are so important to the Bay Area ecosystem. What are New York's anchor companies? How has that affected the ecosystem?

3.) What is it like helping companies like Soundcloud and Airbnb scale when in hyper growth mode? At the seed level, how important a role does valuation play when determining whether to invest or not?

5.) Why is raising a Series B so tough? Is it the embodiment of the funding barbell? Has NYC, like London, seen a rise in the second seed round?

6.) What are Hadley's thoughts on VC founder alignment? What are the common characteristics of the best founders that Hadley has worked with and invested in?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Hadley's Fave Book:

Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner

Hadley's Fave Blog or Newsletter:

Nuzzel

Hadley's Most Recent Investment:

Phhhoto: Instant Moving Pictures

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Hadley on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 20-minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and joining us today, we have one of New York's best early stage investors, officially awarded by Business Insider.
0:10.5	It is, of course, Hadley Harris, founding general partner at ENIAC Ventures, who are the world's first venture fund exclusively focused on mobile, and their investments include the likes of
0:21.7	SoundCloud, Airbnb, and Vangel, just to name a few. With regards to Hadley himself, he was a two-time
0:29.0	entrepreneur in the mobile space prior to ENIAC, working with the likes of Vlingo, ultimately acquired
0:34.8	by Nuance for $225 million, and Thumb, later acquired by YPulse.
0:40.9	If that was enough, Hadley has also worked at Charles River Ventures, helping with mobile investments,
0:46.4	and he also worked at Samsung. But before we dive into the show today, I'd also like to say
0:50.6	a huge thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data for the episode with Hadley.
0:54.9	Also, if you're a little light on VC and startup reading material, subscribe to Mattermark daily.
1:00.7	It's my all-time favorite thing for all things startup and VC reading material.
1:05.5	However, enough from me, so without further ado, ladies and gents, I'm delighted to welcome the man himself, Hadley Harris, founding general partner at Enniac Ventures.
1:19.4	You have now arrived at your destination.
1:23.9	Hadley, I'm hugely excited to have you on the 20 minute VC. Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:28.8	Thanks, Harry. Thanks for having me.
1:30.3	Can you get the ball rolling for us by telling us how you made it into startups and the investing industry?
1:36.4	Yeah, sure. I mean, I've always been really interested in technology. Even as a kid, I loved science and math, studied engineering as a university student.
1:48.5	And then I've really been in technology my entire life.
1:51.6	I worked as an engineer for a while, spent some time at some larger companies like Microsoft
1:56.9	and Samsung, and then a couple of venture-back businesses, one called Flingo and one called Thumb, where I was one of the first employees and an executive at both places running marketing and BD and a bunch of stuff and product.
2:12.1	Amazing experience, got to work with great people. Both companies were fortunate to be acquired, so I got to kind of live through
2:18.9	that whole life cycle. And then back in 2009, started talking to three of my really good friends
2:25.4	from university. We were all engineering students at Penn back in the late 90s, and they were all
	...

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