How do Venture Capital firms evaluate if a SaaS business is worth the investment? In this episode, I interview Emily Walsh @ Georgian Partners about the unique perspective investors have about the SaaS industry.
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Don’t let anyone tell you it’s too late to change your direction.
Emily Walsh went from being a ballet dancer… to a lead investor at Georgian, a VC firm that has raised $1.2B across 4 funds and recently added another $850M in early 2020.
Georgian focuses on investing in software and fin-tech.
According to Emily, Georgian typically invests $20M - $40M at a time.
Being a lead investor, Emily has to be right at the forefront of making the decisions of how to spend that money and who to give it to.
If you’ve ever thought about attracting your first or next round of funding, then it’s vital to know how investors like Emily think.
...especially because Georgian are a minority investor.
Minority investors don’t expect to change your company’s direction. They want to see that you already know where you are going.
If they like the direction, they’ll strap $20M+ rocket-boosters (aka: investments) to the back of your SaaS engine to get you there quicker.
But, how does a firm like Georgian qualify SaaS businesses and evaluate if they’re worth the investment?
AI.
Georgian has an internal model that allows them to input data about a business and validate if the investment will meet their return criteria.
Clever, right?
Let’s hear from Emily in the latest interview on the Escape Velocity podcast.
Emily has a heart for growing SaaS businesses and in our chat, we talk about:
- How Georgian grew from 17 to 60 people
- What got Emily into investing
- How dancing taught her discipline and focus
- Why Georgian structures themselves like a software company
- The 2 questions Emily will ask of any potential software investment
- The future of Conversational AI in SaaS sales pipelines
I love speaking with decision makers at VC firms about the SaaS industry.
Investors get exclusive views of company roadmaps, timelines and P&L sheets.
They see the behind-the-scenes that most companies prefer to keep secret… and although investors respect the business privacy of their portfolio clients, they still have the wisdom for picking market winners well in advance.
I’m telling you… If you EVER want to attract some serious big-cash investors, you HAVE to think the way they think.
And it’s priceless interviews like this one that will help you.
Turn up the volume, and listen to the episode here.
Don't forget to share this entrepreneurial advice with your friends, so they can learn too: DAN MARTELL
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“You can only keep what you give away.” That’s the mantra that’s shaped Dan Martell from a struggling 20-something business owner in the Canadian Maritimes (which is way out east) to a successful startup founder who’s raised more than $3 million in venture funding and exited not one... not two... but three tech businesses: Clarity.fm, Spheric, and Flowtown.
You can only keep what you give away. That philosophy has led Dan to invest in 33+ early stage startups such as Udemy, Intercom, Unbounce, and Foodspotting. It’s also helped him shape the future of Hootsuite as an advisor to the social media tour de force.
An activator, a tech geek, an adrenaline seeker and, yes, a romantic (ask his wife Renee), Dan has recently turned his attention to teaching startups a fundamental, little-discussed lesson that directly impacts their growth: how to scale. You’ll find not only incredible insights in every moment of every talk Dan gives - but also highly actionable takeaways that will propel your business forward. Because Dan gives freely of all that he knows. After all, you can only keep what you give away.
#DanMartell #SaaSAcademy #EscapeVelocity
Recommended Reading >> bit.ly/32kRpzw
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