“Today there’s a much more mature ecosystem around technology.” - Marcelo Ballvé

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Venture investment is a very tricky game. It can be very difficult to find the balances between financial and strategic investing when looking at a new company. This makes it tough for some Venture Capitalists to decide what route to take when looking over proposals.

On this episode of Verizon Ventures we are joined but Meredith Finn and Marcelo Ballvé, two Directors in charge of researching and finding new companies to partner with.

Download this episode today to hear what investors are looking for, how to pitch them, and if you’re the right fit for the venture capitalists you are reaching out to.

Our guests include:

• Meredith Finn, Director of Sales Force Venture - the strategic investment arm SalesForce.com.
• Marcelo Ballvé, Senior Director of Research at CB Insights - a software and data platform that helps companies predict technology trends.

“We define strategic as the ability to plug into our platform and partner with us closely.” - Meredith Finn

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Highlights

• Each success in corporate venture capital can be attributed to a major breakthrough in technology.
• • GM/Dupont wave.
  • Invention of the PC.
  • Internet boom.
  • .com bubble
  • Mobile computing/Social network revolution.
• We’ve seen the rise and fall of many technology trends, which makes this business interesting.
• AI and Machine learning is the new frontier for investments.
• The largest tech companies in the world have been starting tech venture companies.
• People believe it’s unlikely to be a big shake up like we saw in previous tech bubbles.
• • There seems to be a more sustained build up.
• There’s always a tensions between strategic and financial ventures.
• Founder need to consider if venture capitalists have invested in their type of business before reaching out.
• There’s communication issues that need to be ironed out in the relationships between venture capitalist investors and founders.

“50% of our investment is split between a 3-5 and 5-10 year value ahead of where we are today.”

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Resources

CB Insights

Sales Force Venture