OurCrowd Managing Partner Dan Bennett Shares his Experiences on Investing in Startups from All Around the World

Get ready for another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, has interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Today we get to know Angel Investor and Managing Partner at OurCrowd, Dan Bennett. With nearly 20 years' experience globally, Dan understands all the challenges that come with investing and venture capitalism. OurCrowd is a platform that aids entrepreneurs fulfil their dreams and comprised of investors led by co-investing and focuses mostly on deep science and deep technology. They then support those investments and mentor the founders of the start-ups to provide as much support as they can.

Dan talks to us about some of the brilliant start-ups OurCrowd have invested in and the criteria needed to join their portfolio. It is our hope here at Runway that our regional and remote entrepreneurs find a spark of inspiration and get in contact with Dan at OurCrowd to reach your full potential.

An Overview of OurCrowd

OurCrowd was started back in 2013 and is a leading equity crowdfunding platform designed for investment in global start-ups. They are a platform for accredited angel investors and allows them to invest in hand-picked, vetted start-ups alongside the team at OurCrowd. They have a number of offices all around the world, including Australia, Europe, the USA, and Canada just to name a few. Their goal is to help entrepreneurs live out their dreams and fulfil their mission by connecting them with investors and high net wealth who share common interests and goals. This allows for investors to make the decision to invest based on opportunities that resonate with them. OurCrowd will look at around 3,000 to 3,500 deals in a year but will only invest in about 20 of them! They have invested in over 200 companies in total with 40 exits when they were bought out by larger companies such as Uber, Oracle, Snapchat etc. and they have raised about $2billion in the last 7 to 8 years.

What Kind of Start-Ups do OurCrowd Invest In?

Dan and his team at OurCrowd are heavily focussed on deep science and technology and this is reflected in the types of companies they invest in. Dan listed a few of the specialised areas they look to finance; agriculture tech, drones, AI solutions, healthcare and cyber security are just a couple. Getting into the more detailed criteria, OurCrowd look at a variety of different attributes, from the quality of tech to the business model, from the quality of the market size and how the company is going to make money. But the most important standard is the quality of the founder. Are they hungry? How much experience do they have? Are they flexible? These are all questions that Dan has in the back of his mind when he is deciding whether to invest in an idea or not. While there are many other elements that come into play, Dan stresses the importance of getting along with the business founder, he says that a partnership is "like a marriage" and that the most vital thing to him is that this is a person he can connect with. Dan describes himself as being a super active angel investor, he is very hands on with the team and the founder of the company. These kinds of investors are highly desirable and extremely hard to find. This is where the importance of connecting with the founder comes from, because as an active investor Dan plans on spending a lot of time with you.

A classic example of the type of business OurCrowd will invest in is that of a start-up named