@GastonBilder
War stories from an impact investor
First Order Principles Category
Valuation of seed stage startups
Posted on January 21, 2020 Leave a Comment
I don’t care that much about valuation, and thus pay slight attention to this parameter when deciding whether to invest or not in a startup. Apparently, I am not the only one. In a recent post, Sam Altman, of YC fame, provided his recipe for successful investment in startups, which doesn’t mention valuation at all. […]
Fundraising – Angel Investor Perspective
Posted on December 18, 2019 Leave a Comment
How to extract maximum value from your investors. Do you want to herd fat cats? What is wrong with having an atomized shareholding?.
From Impact First to 100% impact portfolio
Posted on November 19, 2019 Leave a Comment
Why don’t you have a 100% impact portfolio in which all your asset classes are deployed in impact investments? When I started investing I didn’t care a lot whether my investments had any positive impact or not; this was just an afterthought held somewhere in the back of my mind. I just was squarely driven […]
Exactly what is social impact?
Posted on October 21, 2019 2 Comments
Social enterprise is the use of business to solve social problems. The companies in my impact portfolio provide some clear examples: Solaris Offgrid is in the business of selling solar home systems in Tanzania to provide access to energy to isolated villages and also supplies the software enabling kitchen stoves to become Pay as you […]
Portftolio approach
Posted on October 7, 2019 1 Comment
This is my current impact investment portfolio. I have invested several times in some of these companies, at different stages of their life cycle. Similarly to any other risk allocation decision, I try to hedge against company-specific risks (i.e. non Beta) by diversifying, which may bring my returns closer to market returns, nevertheless, I am […]
My investment criteria
Posted on September 23, 2019 3 Comments
I try to follow certain ”rules” both for the selection of the startups and for the allocation of funds within my startup investment portfolio. These rules are not written in stone for me, nevertheless, I try to adhere to them as much as my human nature (greed and fear) allows me, i.e. I follow a […]
Innovation at the cross-roads
Posted on September 9, 2019 Leave a Comment
My current investment thesis is based on a combination of : PAYG Inter-Operability + a.i. / data driven finance since such combination could open the door to the financing goods and services for approximately 1-2 billion persons currently living at the bottom of the pyramid. I became interested in the combination of PAYG Inter-Operability + […]
