20VC: Turning $16.5M into $2.1BN; Lessons from the Greatest Venture Investment in European History: UiPath | Why VC is Not Being Commoditised | Why Price Does Not Matter | Lessons on Loss Ratio, Selling and Signalling with Cem Sertoglu

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cem Sertoglu is one of the great venture investors of the last decade. Cem is famed for writing the first check into UiPath and over several rounds turning $16.5M into $2.1BN. Cem recently started Bek Ventures, a $250M fund that was 3x oversubscribed.

In Today’s Show with Cem Sertoglu We Discuss:

1. Has Venture Capital Been Commoditised:

Why does Cem believe that VC has not been commoditised?
Why does Cem believe many VCs today are not even VCs anymore?
How does Cem advise founders who have offers from large multi-stage firms? What questions should they ask them pre-working with them?
How do the best founders select the VC they choose to work with?

2. Price, Reserves, Loss Ratios:

Why does Cem believe that price does not matter?
How does Cem approach reserves and reserves management?
What does Cem know now about reserves that he wishes he had known when he started investing?
Does Cem care about loss ratio? Does he do scenario planning when making investments?

3. Making $2.1BN on UiPath:

How did Cem meet Daniel for the first time? Was it obvious he was incredible?
Why did they only write a $1M check and not take the whole round with $1.5M?
Why did 40 of the best investors in Europe all turn down UiPath for the Series A?
What did doing the bridge round for UiPath teach Cem about reserves?
When was it obvious UiPath was going to be a mega hit?
How did they continue to concentrate capital with each round?
When did they first start to sell shares in UiPath?
What was their approach to the selldown of their position?
When the company IPO’d, how much of it did they have?

4. AMA with One of Europe’s Best:

Does signalling exist? How does Cem advise founders on this?
What has been his biggest loss? How did that change his mindset?
What has been Cem’s biggest miss? What did he not see?
Why does Cem always believe you should manufacture arguments with founders before investing?
Why does Cem believe a high GP commit can actually misalign the GP and the LP?

Transcript

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0:00.0	The best single venture investments, you know, 16 and a half million investments that has brought
0:05.3	us back $2.1 billion in proceeds. So Fund One is 20-time multiple on invested capital. 2.7 of that is
0:14.6	non-UYPath. So about 85% of proceeds of Fund 1 have been UIPath. A UiPath. A UiPath went from a million to a hundred million ARR in 21 months.
0:23.6	At the time that was, I think, the fastest ever.
0:26.6	This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'm so excited for the show stay.
0:29.6	So I did a walk in high park with this guest, and I was just really sad that that discussion was not recorded.
0:35.6	And so I was determined to make this one happen.
0:38.8	With that, I'm so happy to welcome Jem Sotoglu, one of the great venture investors of the last decade.
0:44.5	He's famed for writing the first check into UiPath. And over several rounds, he turned $16.5 million into check this out, $2.1 billion realized.
0:58.8	Gem recently started Beck Ventures, a $250 million fund that was 3x oversubscribed.
1:05.5	And I also think most shows on Venture, honestly, don't have enough data.
1:10.4	People aren't open with their numbers.
1:12.6	In this episode with Gem, he is incredibly open with his numbers and it makes the show fantastic.
1:17.6	But before we dive in, what do Henry Ford and AI have in common? Neither could change the world without automation.
1:24.6	In the future, there will be two types of businesses, those that have
1:28.1	automated and those that wish they had. UiPath, the undisputed leader in automation, is taking
1:34.2	us into the era of agenetic automation. UiPath's new AI agents don't just follow rules. They think,
1:41.2	they make decisions, they work alongside the world's most powerful software robots, already trusted by over 10,000 businesses.
1:49.0	If agentic automation sounds new, just think of UiPath as more growth, not more overhead platform, or happier customers, happier employees platform.
1:59.0	Whatever you want AI to do for your business,
2:01.6	agenic automation with UiPath will make it happen. Try UiPath's new AI agents for free at
2:07.9	Uipath.com. The future of automation is both agenic and robotic, so don't get left behind.
	...

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