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Cem Sertoglu

lines on the record: 89
first: 2024-11-20
most recent: 2024-11-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“The jury is out on the entire set. A few of them, a few very critical ones, have matured into now grown into the multiples that we ended up paying for them at the time. A few others are still on their way there. It's a young portfolio, so I can't really.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If we feel rushed, we might. And we will not get rushed into decisions. In 2021, when the market was in a frenzy, we would never categorically pass on a valuation. So we've written very expensive checks in that period, but we would categorically pass on not having enough time to understand the business and digest the opportunity. And sometimes the process that gets communicated us will not let us understand and digest a company in those cases will pass. And it doesn't feel good because categorically passing is not right. And I'm sure there's probably some good companies in there we may have passed on because it felt rushed.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think we usually try to sort of disagree with the founders in the term sheet process at least once so that we kind of see the dynamics of what happens around that. So usually what we see companies go in the wrong direction and board dynamics go in the wrong direction is if there was a lot of tension in the early round discussions, if this was a very contentious negotiation around specific governance terms, et cetera, sometimes that leaves a bad taste in the mouth on both sides. And there's this lack of trust that is in place as soon as the investment is done. We've had very few cases of this, but it's a very negative environment to operate in.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On this, the early stage, the seed round A round is really a contract that establishes disalignment. It's not a real investment. It's not the same as buying Apple shares in the market.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think for practical reasons, that's a good benchmark whether it's two, two and a half or three, that could be discussed based on the stage, but more or less, I think that's a good heuristic, a good rule of thumb. What we try to align with our founders is the early rounds are not real rounds. They are contracts where you're demonstrating alignment around a target that is very far out ahead. Every early stage check, you're buying a very out-of-the-money call option on these businesses. It's not a trade. I think a lot of people get that wrong. It's not a trade. It's really a construct for an alignment, for a partnership where the founder is saying, I'm going to have a few people around this table on this journey with me. And what I'm saying in return is this company and your team, the founder team, is going to be one of my four or five slots for this fund. So for the next five years, I'm all in with you.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've seen board dynamics where, alluding to what I was saying a minute ago, there's just so much pressure to demonstrate value add that we find some board members just get overly eager to contribute to add, to maybe even iterate over and over topics that maybe don't warrant it. But I think it's important to understand that, first of all, the founder always knows their business better than us. A lot of times they're smarter than us. They're certainly harder working than us. They have more skin in the game with us. So our job is to just support them when we can and when they need us.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Best founders need a group of smart aligned individuals that they know are on their side and pushing in the same direction, rowing in the same direction as they are when they're trying to create this miracle called a successful startup because I think every successful startup is a miracle. They shouldn't happen.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I disagree with that. I think what we sell is not our cash. The cash is available. I mean, the C and A rounds are flush with new capital coming in all the time. So I think what we sell is our time and attention and capacity. And we're selling one of those 20 slots in that fund's portfolio that I'm going to be devoting my entire set of resources for the next 10 years. That's what I'm selling.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, I think the healthy board dynamic is one with all the board members around the table, but also in one-on-one conversations with the founders as well. So I think it's very difficult to have that conversation come up for the first time in a board setting if it's sensitive like that. I think the valuable relationship with a founder that the board member or the VC has should allow for a better introduction, better timing, et cetera, for that sensitive topic. But I think beyond that, as long as you're choosing what important few topics are carefully, then bringing them up should not be a problem.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, we believe in being quiet on the board. It's a skill that we have spent a lot of time thinking about and also through our kind of apprenticeship model internally. We try to distribute within the firm. Because we're the only asset class where the asset chooses the investor, right? So there's this enormous pressure to demonstrate value add. What this means, and social media unfortunately compounds this, that there is this temptation for VCs to be coming up with aphorisms around what a company story should look like. Whereas every company is unique. Every company has its own pace, its own trajectory. We think that you, of course, learn from your experiences in other journeys, but then synthesize that and distill that to very carefully chosen moments to provide input to the founder.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's a combination of all the three you mentioned. First of all, ours is an industry that fetishizes growth. And as you know, the easiest metric to grow for a founder is headcount. creates this sort of perverse validation sense. They've just raised a large round very successfully. They have the budget. They put out the ads. They hire the recruiters and off to the races they go. And of course, when you're especially on the go-to-market side, if you're scaling your go-to-market team, then you give them a script and they start working off that script. If that script is not a perfect fit for where that company is at the moment, then the sideways trailing starts to happen. Losing the ability to adapt and iterate, especially on the go-to-market side, is what we've seen as the biggest cause of that kind of sideways trailing off.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the biggest impediment to that scale for some companies is assuming product market fits prematurely and being tempted into going into hyperscale mode prematurely.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Signaling does exist very strongly, and we try to, in every investment we make, we really try to analyze the signals we're getting from the cap table, from really everyone and how they're behaving, how they're voting with their shares, not literally, but like, you know, their follow-on decisions, lack thereof, they provide lots of interesting insight.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fun one, we have one of them. We'll make money from it. It's not the strong performance driver for the fund. But if that company goes into a billion-dollar outcome, which it might, then it won't return the fund, but it'll carry its weight”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but then I think you should stick to principles. I mean, and we do that as well. We've passed on in some cases because of the ownership just because we have really a certain number of bullets. We have only four or five investments per partner per fund.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We will. We try not to be dogmatic if it makes sense if the math works. Typical first check ownership is between 10 and 20%, but we've gone on either side of that.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it's warranted, if our check is big enough, if our space in the cap table warrants it, yes, we usually like to get a board seat, but not every time.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the word we end up coming to is care. When you are a small partnership, I mean, in our firm for every fund, each partner writes about four or five checks per fund each year. We talk about one or two investments at most. So in terms of the capacity attention and care that founders stand to receive from that partner is probably very distinct from what you would see at a firm with a much broader portfolio. Do you need a board?”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We do, but then in hindsight, sometimes we do post exit we look at our early memos and we laugh about it in the case of UiPath. I mean, we thought it could return the fund. I mean, it has returned 12 and a half times the fund already. So that's been very miscalculated analysis. But we do do it. It's a part of the, I think, the discipline of just making sure that the market's there.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In that order, founder number one, ultimately at our stage, I think it's the only thing that matters. We've seen great starts get bungled badly because of founder problems, character problems, ethical problems, values. So the founder trumps all. We've passed on a few very interesting, promising companies because we just could not see ourselves partnered with the founder across the table. Secondly would be market because everything we do ultimately needs to be able to return our fund if all goes well. We're in a sort of a high return business by taking high risk. So the high return should be there. So if it's a small market, if it's a crowded market, we'll pass the traction at our stages tells us something in some cases, but it's a distant third.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, of course. If I'd been able to see that they'd be a global contender, of course, it wouldn't matter, but they were just a little Baltics player in ridehailing.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good question. We've lost or we didn't understand a few businesses. I mean, one example that's probably our biggest loss is we met Bolt, the car company, and they were called Taxify at the time, a small Baltics ride hailing company, even though Marcus founder was extraordinary, we really couldn't see the trajectory to be a global leader in that space. We also had question marks about take rates, warranted take rates for an app where you just signal your location. We felt that what Uber was establishing as the market pricing wouldn't really warrant that take rate. So we had question marks about the market as well. So there, what would I have done differently is maybe been more open.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, on the one hand, we know that valuation doesn't matter. On the other hand, we cannot operate like that. So we also are ultimately tethered to some idea of value and what are we paying for and does the company we're looking at warrant that? So I think we try to not lose on price, but constantly question us about, is this entry price a fair price that we're coming in? Or are we now at a point in the cycle or is this firm just getting, you know, is this round getting so competitive that the term sheet is getting bit up? And we've passed on price in the past. And I think we have a mixed track record on whether that was the right decision or not.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So fund one is 20 times multiple on invested capital. 2.7 of that is non-UIPath. So about 85% of the proceeds of Fund 1 have been UiPath. What if you take it out, it's still a 2.7 times fund in fund”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, that's after the sell off, so it wasn't even the high watermark. It's power law in action and it's actually a very humbling experience to see because it shows you where you have to play a very disciplined game, but you also need to get lucky.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but in that case, I mean, at the type of multiples we're at, I mean, that's a 16.5 million investments that has brought us back 2.1 billion dollars in proceeds. So yes, I'll take half of that any day.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great question. Is it Scott Fitzgerald who said that a sign of a great intellect is the ability to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time? On the one hand, we look at our biggest outcomes and we do an analysis of what would have happened, what the return would look like if we paid twice as much at the first check. And the answer is that it doesn't really matter that much for UiPath if we done the seed round at twice the valuation. It wouldn't have really made any difference. It would have still been a fantastic outcome.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, if we think this is a founder that we can align with and if we feel that chemistry with a founder, if we see that the founder also understands us and can understand what we bring to the table, absolutely. And we've gone into situations like that where the founder ended up choosing us over some of the brand names you're bringing up.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It depends on the contract that the founder is looking for. If they're wanting cash and they want to turn around and run their business, I think what you're saying might be right. Most of the best founders we partner with are looking for a contract where they try to align with co-founder like partners to be on the journey with them. And in that case, I think they start asking themselves the right questions. And that's why for some of the top founders, you'll see out there that their cap tables are not filled with only the sort of very large multi-stage firms. They pick their investors as people. They almost pick them as if they pick co-founders.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if you look at those firms as kind of a one strategy, one investment portfolio, I think you could come to that conclusion. But what I see it is at the core of their portfolios, if they are early stage investors. So I don't mean the later stage or crossover type investors, but if they're really early stage rooted the way index sequoia benchmark are, actually that's a great point where benchmark has stuck to their seed strategy. So they're keep playing the game that they know they have an edge in, which is keeping font size constant and just deploying concentrated portfolio after concentrated portfolio. The other firms decide to build an asset management business adjacent to their early stage strategy. And I think that's where they start to look like commoditized products, but I don't think they are.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Disagree with that. I think there have been attempts to try to commoditize the early stage market. I don't think it happens. I think Doug Leone would be the first to agree that if it were a commodity, it would be the same thing to raise from a sequoia or from us or from 20 VC or from your dentist who's angel investing. And we all know that that's not the same thing for a founder. It's not cash is green and all equal. So I don't think it is getting commoditized because it's limited. You cannot scale it by just pouring money on it. I think that's what commoditization implies.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think our job is to play the game. Our business structure is defined by timelines. We raised 10 year life funds. So our job is to expose our fund to the strongest opportunities in every vintage, not to try to time the market. So when it's a bull market, the entry prices are up. Hopefully the exit prices are up as well. So it's kind of balanced each other. But now we felt that our job was to continue to invest.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The startup venture capital playbook is now visibly played out around the world. So founders know what to say. So they come and a VC that they're meeting for the first time from Silicon Valley sitting with them in Bucharest. And they're able to tell a very, very compelling story, irrespective of whether there's anything behind it. I think being able to reference founders to understand where they come from, get a sense of where they go to school, which companies do they work at, like what's the environment they developed and is their signal there? Is that what you would expect a great potential founder to be coming from? I think you get that only with immersion.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Course happens in every cycle they rush in and then they rush out very, very quickly. And also when they rush in, they miss out on the nuances of the region.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great question. It was out of getting nervous because what I saw is I was able to syndicate the first couple of million dollars into these companies. But then the moment they needed anything above $510 million, there was nobody that targeted that stage in our region. So I'd have to come to Silicon Valley or New York or London and convince people who didn't really understand our part of the world. So I thought if I raise a fund to focus on opportunities in Eastern Europe and Turkey, then I can follow on and maybe support these companies for the couple of rounds after my initial entry because I thought if I couldn't do that, some of these companies might actually go bust. So it was out of fear.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was an angel in these early companies. I got very lucky. A few of my early investments turned out to be the biggest exits at the time in the Turkish markets of e-commerce company got sold to eBay, food delivery company, the leader in Turkey got sold to delivery hero. These were big outcomes, largest exits. So it started to”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Buy shoes online. And I'm thinking, I look at the US, I look at the UK, and I'm like, that's not right. People are people. They're going to buy shoes online. So I saw the playing out of consumer internet in the West and looked for opportunities to partner with companies that were trying to do the same thing in the rest of the world.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a founder turn investor. I started my first company in 1999 in New York. Horribly timed, arguably the worst time in history to start a tech company. It was a company called SelectMind. We were building in social networking software, one of the earliest participants in that space, but hit the crash pretty hard. We survived ultimately did okay, had a nice exit, and decided to move to Istanbul, which is where I grew up. I'm Turkish, born and raised in Istanbul. Initially thinking that was going to be for two years. When I moved back, I started meeting young Turkish tech companies, mostly consumer internet businesses, and got excited. I think I saw two things that not a lot of people agreed with me on. One is the fact that people behave similarly everywhere, especially in their interaction with technology, with consumer technology. At the time, for example, people were telling me, oh, you know, people in France will never”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The best single venture investment 16.5 million investments that has brought us back $2.1 billion in proceeds. So Fund 1 is 20 times multiple on invested capital. 2.7 of that is non-UiPath. So about 85% of proceeds of Fund 1 have been UIPath. UiPath went from a million to a hundred million ARR in 21 months. At the time, that was, I think, the fastest ever.”
2024-11-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source