🎙️ EP27: Supporting Emerging Fund Managers and Funding Founders in Emerging… | InvestHer Podcast

Welcome to episode 27 of InvestHer Podcast. This is the last podcast of 2021. And we know it's going to be a great one because hold on to your seats. Today, you will be meeting Olga Dukha, who is the co-founder and managing partner of Improve Ventures, which is a pre-seed fund that is investing in startups all across the world. Particularly from emerging markets. So that's really cool. Finally, a fund that's in emerging markets around the world pre-seed. Fabulous. Now, what's interesting about this conversation is the second part of our conversation is really fascinating, because it goes behind the scenes on everything to do with being an emerging fund manager, the challenges, what you need to know, and what are the trends in emerging funds at the moment. So this podcast episode is really cool, something for everything. The beginning is all around more founder-focused, focus, learning about the fund and her feedback on that. And the second one, the second part of this discussion is super interesting around emerging fund management. So great for all the investors who are listening in. Enjoy this episode. Investor Podcast is for you, the female founder who has a product, a service, or a message that you believe in and need to get funded. Or for you, the investor who wants to learn more about the huge untapped investment opportunity that gives you a higher return— women entrepreneurs. My name is Anne Ravanona. I'm an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and women's advocate, and I'm passionate about helping women entrepreneurs get funded. In each episode, we'll take a behind-the-scenes look into real-world funding tactics and strategies to help you get the funding you need faster. Let's put the fun into funding. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started. Great. So welcome everybody. It's another funding conversation brought to you by Global InvestHer, and I am your host, Anne Ravanona, founder and CEO of Global InvestHer. And today I am thrilled to have with me the wonderful Olga Duka from Improve Ventures. Welcome, Olga. How are you?

Thanks, so cool to be here. Hope everyone is doing fine today. It's getting a bit late and I assume people are still working, so.

We have people still working because we have people from all over the place who join us, Olga, which is great because we have people from the US and so people as well from Europe. So for those later in the day and for those in Asia, they're nearly time for sleep, so we're welcome to have you with us. So let's get started. I like to kind of warm up with this kind of easy question, Olga, so people get to know you. Can you tell us a fun fact about you, something we may not easily find on the internet? Let's get to know you.

I do pretty decent photography, sort of semi-professional photography. I've been doing that for 20 years, and I do portraits of friends and random strangers. and portraits of cities. I mean, I treat cities like beings, let's put it this way.

Ooh, I like that. I treat cities like beings. I like this. I'm gonna pin your video, so we're just gonna see you on big. That's better. We wanna see you 'cause you're the star today. Okay, so before, I wanna kind of give everybody a heads up. This is gonna be a very exciting webinar and podcast episode because Olga is a fascinating woman. You are a fascinating person. You really, really are. She's so brilliant. So many brilliant ideas. And what I—

And exceptionally shy.

Yeah, you're— yeah, well, I don't believe that for a second, but if you are, we will respect that. But we're going to make sure that we get— she's laughing.

Please.

So what we want to kind of say is today on this conversation, like, you have started a new fund, right? So today we want to anchor the conversation around 2 angles. One is, what's it like to be an emerging fund manager? What does that What's it like at the moment? Because things are really bubbling up. So we're going to talk about that. So the investors in the room are going to enjoy that side of the conversation. And then we will also, of course, be talking to the founders in the room so that you can give some of that brilliant advice. But I want to kind of position this very clearly because we're going to have both angles and you will be telling us about your fund as well. Isn't that right, Olga?

Yeah, absolutely. Any question you want to start with?

Yeah, so anybody who wants to ask questions, I want you to start putting them in the chat box. Those of you who've already sent them, I'm going to ask them because there's actually a very cool one that I like and is in from— hold on a second— Tim. So Tim asked a question, he's from the US, and he said, what were your 2 biggest surprises ever? I like that.

Biggest surprises in fundraising and launching a fund?

Yeah, or just in general. He just says biggest surprises ever, so you can choose how you want to answer that one.

Uh, good question actually, because, uh, first of all, I'm unbelievably curious person in the first place, so a lot of things surprise me on a daily basis. Uh, and, uh, while working with founders, I get surprised by Like some novel ideas, yes, but also by some unusual team dynamics or some very interesting thinking coming from different cultures or from different backgrounds and how it plays out together within a team, especially that when Black people get together to brainstorm and produce something bigger than they are together. By combination of different thinking type patterns and skill sets. On fundraising, I was probably surprised to see so many people who respond to our value proposition, not in terms of financing, ethical value proposition. It's like, what is it that we are looking to fund? Who are we looking to work with? And it's very much about human-centric solutions, very much about human-centric innovations, putting talents in the center of the room, supporting people extremely early on, supporting talents from all walks of life, wherever they are, not waiting until they mature, prove themselves over and over and over and get to some recognized networks. On the opposite, going to like places no one had gone before and finding some amazing thinkers, in rural Indonesia. I mean, come on, this is the most amazing part of all of this. And the surprise was that with different backgrounds, different thinking, different ideas, there are a lot of people who are extremely aligned to ethical, long-term sustainable building of value to create better opportunities for work, for life, for developing talents, for education, finance, infrastructure, energy. I mean, you name it. all of those things, but thinking in extremely long term, and looking forward to build something worthwhile with people you actually enjoy working with. So not, not really, really aligned with human beings.

So I love that. So first of all, I want to— I think she's— Olga has very deftly morphed into the kind of the question around what's her value proposition? And what is, what is Improve Ventures, what you're looking for? You've kind of come into that now, but it's good. What I want you all to know is that what you see is what you get with Olga. She's an incredibly smart and curious person. It's always interesting when you ask a question how they answer the question. And so when she says that she's very curious, I can tell you she is. When I can— when she says she likes to brainstorm with brilliant people and, and see the feed the creativity from diversity, I've experienced it with her. So I'm just saying for those investors who are kind of saying, Hmm, could be an interesting fund to look at. I want you to learn more about Olga because really you're going to get a, you know, a really nice surprise. So let's— before we do that, just tell us a little bit about your background, Olga, because you are a founder and a co-founder turned investor. But let's start your journey there and then tell us about how and why you created Improve Ventures. But let's start about you because you've got Such an interesting background.

Again, curious. It's like my whole pathway is the definition of curiosity gone wild, I'd say. I started off as a trader and asset manager on financial and public markets. And due to a combination of very fantastic coincidences, I was a part of small investment funds where we're like 5 traders and just 2 researchers. So we used to work 16 hours a day trading pretty much all markets, asset classes, as well as help with research. And my education comes to engineering and macroeconomics. And so it was like, yeah, that's totally logical for me to both dive into research over some stock, over some commodity sector, as well as do trading and learn to Asset allocation, but say in a few years' time down the road, I found myself at a halt. I'd say because I was like, okay, I keep solving the same chaos theory problem over and over and over, and I still don't know how value is created, how all these companies or bonds for that matter come to trade, where it's originated, how it's been done. And I've started at first. I was just exploring. It was literally one year of exploration, calling friends and saying, hey, I have no clue what I'm going to do next in my life. Honestly, I thought that I had this huge talent in asset allocation, public markets, but apparently a few years down the road, I found it's not my full life ahead of me. It's just a few years and a huge skillset I will implement to something else. And I want to discover what this something else is.

Stepping stone instead of it being the be-all and end-all. It was a stepping stone.

Yeah, and that brought me into a bunch of very different things, anywhere from research and marketing strategies, something like piece of Olympics in Russia, marketing strategy for some also weird coincidence, but also working with talents, as in musicians, comedians, popular scientists, educators, and entrepreneurs. And it was happening simultaneously, so I was both involved in, say, mergers and acquisitions and research and finding companies for acquisition in edtech and HR tech, simultaneously producing a cross-cultural, cross-discipline festival for science and music. And the whole, like, playing field was always extremely early, as in person comes over and says, hey, I think I'm going mad. I have some strangest idea. I haven't even started doing this. Could you be my sounding board? For a musician to write some like novel album or figure out how to go on a tour in a different place, like in a different continent they've never done before, for producing popular science activities, like as in a festival. And I honestly believe that scientists must perform at stadiums. When I've spent a lot of time in my life to do, to help do that and see, to actually see the results too. Or a founder coming over with an idea saying like, I'm building fintech, some platform for, say, microsavings. Could you talk to me? It's like, with all your backgrounds in finance and regulation and everything, everything, where should I even start thinking of? What is my major gaps? Like, what are the things I should be considering? And eventually, I spent pretty much last decade working with many founders across United States, Europe, Asia, as fractionalized executive, as founder and co-founder, as advisor, as chief investment officer to help them structure and help raise, working with companies from accelerators, from venture studios. And it always was as early as possible going towards pre-seed and then seed stage. And so when COVID started, I just sat down. I was like, okay, last 15 years I've spent really, really digging into how ideas originate in fundamental science, in research labs, in explanations, in packaging, in arts, in music, in technologies, in multiple sectors. And I have a decent financial background, an asset allocation background. I've been putting together like this whole very long-term play for these 15 years on how to invest in talent And I think it's about the time that I should just start building it. I've been preparing very long time. I've been working with a lot of people on this. I've been thinking about which strategies would fit best, but now it's time to start. Besides the point, crisis is like first entrepreneur commandment, build in hell. Crisis is literally my time to do things.

And I love it because what's fascinating about your profile as an investor, I mean, we often see people see that, you know, we often see investors come from the financial world, we often see investors be curious about things, but you sound so left and right-brained at the same time. It's like a complete mishmash going on in your brain. It's so fascinating. What I'm hearing as well, Olga, from you is that you've, you know, you're very analytical, you know how to spot talent, you like, you can see the seedling of an idea, and you know the potential it has, probably way before the person who has that idea realizes it because you've been exposed to all these things. So it's, it's absolutely wonderful that you have chosen, and thank you for choosing, the path of creating your own fund and saying, right now I want to invest in these incredible founders who are going to change the world, and, and I'm interested in the long-term play. So I think this is the perfect time for you to tell us now a little bit more about Improve Ventures. What is your exact thesis? What are you looking for? And that you're raising the fund now. Let's start there because we're gonna come back once you've told us a bit more about your fund, a bit, you know, emerging fund management life.

Which is fun.

Which is fun.

The fund is to invest in pre-seed and seed stages and be first institutionally checked in pre-seed at least. for emerging markets, for founders from all walks of life who are building human-centric solutions for more sustainable life and circular economy, which can scale regionally or globally. We are looking for somewhat a meta play in technology so that you can make—

What do you mean by that?

It means that, say, you are launching some, for example, educational app in Africa. And even though you might change the skin, UI/UX, between different regions, depending on the languages, etc., your backbone is going to be the same. Or you are working on, say, biotech, and you are building data-driven platform for, say, drug-to-drug interaction or producing like future formulas for some drugs, but it doesn't make you a producer pharmaceutical company. It makes you like a subset which can go into the whole supply chain, add a value chain.

Yeah.

But makes you like an upper layer to all of the industry itself. And we're in multiple, in chemistry, in biology, are in new materials, we're in this space where there are a bunch of these novel ideas which can play as a meta layer of solutions on which you can tap into. It's similar to fintech where you are thinking about, say, plate type of solutions like API to multiple banks. This is just one of examples, but most importantly, we're looking for being as early as possible. And my experience, my partner's experience is Everybody tells you are always too early. Yeah, we don't have bets. You're never too early for us.

I love it.

As you invest in people.

Hallelujah! Sorry, gotta pause and say that, Olga. Hallelujah! You're the first fund who's ever said you're not too early. We want to hear from you.

You know, this is exactly the point. It's first of all, like with all my experience and my partner's experience and a lot of founders and investors I worked with before, you get to see that pre-seed is not about metrics. Metrics are either misleading at this stage, or it's just early assumptions you get to prove in between pre-seed and seed, which means that you have to be able to assess talents properly. You have to have some visibility into the sector or in some macro and sector and geography. And you have to understand if this is feasibly going Really truly scalable or not. And like one of examples, I worked with musicians a lot. Hence, I'm fully aware of event management system. I've seen 300 platforms for tickets in the last decade alone. Wow! So whenever I'm seeing next ticket platform, first of all, like you have to understand that I know the whole market inside out. I know the bottlenecks. I know the structure of the market. Itself with certain oligopoly, I'd say, across at least several major geographies. And so unless you are building something entirely different, it's not going to be truly scalable, at least from our thesis standpoint. And unless you are building something which allows musicians to earn as much as possible directly from fans, it's not going to be disruptive for music tech as well. So, when you start thinking in these terms, you really understand that here is one part for talent assessment and like getting— like be open to anyone being— just being themselves and being different. I love that. And eventually, you start to recognize some— something about people that, oh, it actually— I love how this person thinks.

Yeah.

And then get to recognize ideas and their potential scalability to some degree, because again, it's a probability game for sure. It's like, we are always being mistaken and that's fine. It's just a part of venture investing or any type of investing for that matter.

Yeah.

It's the cost of learning as well.

Yeah.

But in some fields, you just have enough visibility to just see things, like, it makes sense. Even just from a standpoint, does it make sense at all?

Yeah.

Does it look real? Does it look like it solves actual real problem? And this is another part to the fund and why emerging markets is that in developed countries, you get to build, say, a solution for 1% of people in extremely competitive, overvaluated, overheated markets. In emerging markets, you get to build something which half of population can use. It's like, yeah, what could be more important than this? Yeah, supporting founders who are building an actual, like, drastic change to their own countries, to their regions. What's more interesting out there?

I love it. And so, okay, so early, very, very early stage with a brilliant idea that they can bounce ideas off you, particularly in emerging markets or in a meta market where you kind of see If you kind of conquer one side, you can then layer up on top and you can multiply quickly. So that's clear. What kind of check size? So you're talking pre-seed. When we say emerging markets, let's be even more clear. Have you got kind of particular countries, regions in mind when you say that?

We are talking about Southeastern Asia, Africa, and Latin America first and foremost. Checks we've seen so far are anywhere between $150K to maybe $250K tops. It's really not much. And considering the upside we think is there, considering that there is not enough capital to cover all innovations happening in these markets right now, it's dollar averaged, not high a risk as it's at least considered to be. And oftentimes, one of the most important things, and which I really love about emerging markets, make it like a lot of sense to me, is that you have to come with sustainable business model first, and then you scale. You don't get to play, let's raise multiple rounds and still be negative in profits or in net revenues till we hit IPO stage. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever to do that.

Yeah.

Plus, it's completely unsustainable in my belief.

Yes.

And we don't really even see founders in these markets which do something like that. And second, extreme efficiency of capital. $50K can make as much in, say, in Nigeria as maybe $1 million in New York or $2 million. It's like you get the same efficiency, pretty much the same outputs and results. Another part to this is it doesn't look like anything say Silicon Valley playbook or UK playbook would train you to see. Offline-first economies, lack of infrastructure, lack of access to internet. You have to kind of see things for what they are and try to understand how people are living actually, what is going on, what are the bigger problems.

Yeah.

And many of these companies, their decks don't look like anything you would see in California, for example. And you have to learn to read fruits, to see it for what that is and how you can assess these early experimentations.

So, and this is why you would be a very exciting fund and different fund for these, for these founders and for potential investors to invest in you. I can say that, you can say that, but I can say it. I think it would be an interesting thing because you can you have that deep understanding and knowledge of the cultural differences in the areas that you're interested in, number one, but you already understand how the game is kind of played, as you say, and how the money can go much further. You know, how you have to acclimatize to the local culture. And I want to pick in and pitch in some of the questions that people have been sending in because it's linking into exactly this kind of area. A few people are from the edtech space because they know that you've done edtech and you're saying it, so they're all popping up with questions in edtech. So we have a question from Jane, and so, uh, I think she's still on or she's now left, but that's okay. I'm still going to ask her questions because it's good. So she's saying she's from PopFizz Computer Science. She's active in the US, recently expanding to Korea, Philippines, and Malaysia. They teach children age 8 to 17 code, how to code. She would like to hear about your edtech journey and your interests. So that's the first question on edtech. Like, what's your edtech journey? Real quick, tell us your edtech journey super fast and your interests, because then I have other edtech questions coming behind.

One part, I've— I'm a self-learner. I'm learning with people through, like, by doing a lot. Always been like that. Always research some frameworks and how can I acquire skills and meta-skills, and how can I transfer those in teams, in, or to just people on the internet by writing some experience in a structured and coherent way? So it becomes less of my personal opinion, but more of here are a bunch of questions you can probably ask yourself and come up with some approach to you which is relevant to you. Yeah, and then it was— I was teaching economics, mathematics, I was teaching trading as well at some points, and afterwards I was, I was investing for researchers, fundamental research on markets for sure, but I was also part of Foresight and Education, which was a major initiative launched from Russia In 2016-ish, I think, which went on to California, and we gathered 300 experts from all around the world, anywhere between KIST and KAIST in Korea to Stanford and Harvard professors to join us, plus startups, plus venture capitalists. And it was 2 days long, multiple strategic sessions, which were like putting together complex different viewpoints coming from different parts of types of stakeholders. Surprisingly, this book and map and infographics we produced afterwards is just becoming relevant, which is fun because back then you were like early adopter thinking that education should be around a human being. And after COVID, it was immediately apparent for parents at home, for people outside that, yes, this is obvious. Yes, absolutely. And last few years, it was was just for some teachers, some innovators, for some founders, for some investors, but we haven't even seen what edtech could do. In my—

The world has woken up, we had to feel the pain. That's the thing, because you're a forward thinker, you're a visionary thinker. And you know, you really do that meta-analysis, we had to feel the pain until we would start listening and wake up. And that's why it's, it's really good that you share your background, because actually one of our one of our InvestHer community members who is online with us now. She sent in a question. So her name is Susan Taffer, Dr. Susan Taffer. She's an incredible education specialist as well. And I think you two ladies need to talk. And that's why I said, Susan, beyond this webinar, you got to talk to Olga. But she was asking a question about, are there funds for VC— are there like VC funds for edtech available? And if so, What percentage of the market is available for women who lead in the US? So she's kind of understanding about what are the edtech VC funds in the US that you know of, and what percentage kind of goes to women in—

There are a few. As in to the previous question, I worked with edtech startups. I'm now helping build edtech angel investing learning startup. And we are for sure backing a lot of edtech across emerging markets, which is one of my big, big priorities.

Yeah.

In terms of funding, it's, it's a good question. Because first of all, I am now witnessing third wave of of edtech innovations in general over the last 15 years or so. I've got to know over time very different investors, angels, or funds, or late-stage funds. The playbook has changed from COVID time quite a bit. And so, if previously it were like someone like GSV and just a few more specialty funds and a couple of players like Tiger, Now it's angels specializing in edtech. Some funds, say, in Singapore, investing specifically in edtech and HR tech. And going back to London, it's something I would love to talk about with the community, because UK ecosystem been a puzzle for me in the recent years, because there are some very strange gaps, in my opinion. And it's probably more to do with culture than anything else, because partially, there are a lot of high net worth and wealthy people and investors who are also part of clubs, of tea parties, of some political parties, et cetera, but they're completely disconnected from just entrepreneurial communities.

Yeah.

From university and to a bit later stage until they hit something like A or B stage or so. And even entrepreneurs, like mature entrepreneurs in the ecosystem, don't really go to talk to younger entrepreneurs. Comparing to Ireland, that's like a drastic difference to what is going on. At the same time, England has London, England has, say, Future City Catapult and other design clusters. I mean, there are some sort of contradictions, some contradictions on what gaps are there and what gaps are typical for generally venture ecosystem, what gaps are just specifically British. But—

What about the US though? So for in the US, you've mentioned Tiger, but that's more later stage fund. Isn't it?

Do you go into A stages these days as well?

I think A, but if you're pre-seed or seed, 'cause I mean, I know some of the startups that we work with are more in that stage.

Angels, in England, in my opinion, at least, it's angels, it's pre-seeds and accelerators, maybe venture studios, but then again, it's easier to probably raise from Europe than from UK at this point. In some companies are, say, European-based but London registered and working in both directions, even with Brexit still, like it's just registration domiciled company.

Yeah.

But early stage, so let's put it this way, early stage, especially pre-seed, is nonexistent if you're talking about a venture fund. Yeah, it's more or less, uh, angels, syndicates, venture studios, and accelerators. Yeah. And even in some mature markets, uh, it's more on the angel side than, uh, funds.

Okay, so I don't want to spend too much time on it because we want to cover so many things, but there's one question. Margo, um, Margo J. Baines, now she's, um, she's got an edtech question which is a bit different. She said she's building a self-assessment Steam-based learning platform and a gaming app that uses behavioral mental health and gaming to help kids feel better about themselves. Awesome, Margot. She's been told she's not really edtech. So what would you say? What box would you put her in if she's not edtech? How would you, how would you describe what she does?

Good question. Partially, I guess it falls into feedback Feedback to behavior in various forms. If this feedback helps on their acquiring learning skills and learning journey, it could be soft skills at tech, probably.

Mm-hmm.

So, as I don't really know what is it within, it's hard to say, but I can say that the whole niche of just paid feedback is going to be a niche in itself, a continuous feedback loop to what you've learned so far, where you want to learn next, how you can acquire novel skills, who you can work with project-based or go to work or continuously study or launch your company or go to work for some corporates. And this continuous feedback loop is something which can help you like reintegrate what you know into a working framework. So oftentimes something you need to like move to the next level is just to talk to someone.

Yeah, keep going. You got stuck for a minute. Go on.

Talk to someone and get sort of a feedback of, yes, you've done this, you seem to be getting these results, and you seem to be acquiring these type of skills. That actually is enough for our neural network to say, to reshape the whole perception of what you can and cannot do and where your skill is.

So the thing is, so you're answering that because you have deep sector knowledge, right? I'm just flagging this. And what I believe Margot is kind of wondering is like, okay, to the investors who don't understand this sector, what box do you put me in? Where do I knock on the door? Some people are telling me I'm not edtech. You clearly are saying, yeah, you're a super niche of edtech. And this whole piece of behavioral and feedback loop is going to be critical in the future. But that's because you deeply understand what she's doing. So where would you look if it's not in edtech?

What I'm trying to say is that unless I understand the user journey, I can't say for sure, because it could be mental therapy. It could be gamification and like acquiring soft skills, which could be probably gaming and learning, not fully— it's a part of edtech anyway, but I mean, it depends on what is being delivered.

Yeah.

Because it could be a part of mental health, and then probably it's a different segment. It could be a part of gamification of learning experience, and then it's some, say, soft skills and getting kids to Acquire something like being curious. I mean, loving to learn is already a great thing to have. It could be a feedback to skills being acquired as well as your mental health. So your like internal engine, your internal stability, like getting to know how to manage yourself along with learning process, which I think is important for kids. So that can place her into. Different sectors. But then for us, it's like, it probably will be okay. It will be cross-discipline. That's fine. Some investors, it will be really important to like, you should be here, then we can take a look. Otherwise, we don't know. But it's for her— what I'm trying to say is for her to call it, because she thinks about something. Yeah. If her competition is in edtech, then she is in edtech, or on some cross with like mostly leaning to edtech. Yeah, regardless whoever else is trying to tap her into, because a lot of people will try to put you in different boxes. Yeah, don't listen to them unless you're properly sure that you are mistaken, you've done your research, and you actually agree with the feedback, as feedback should be like taken with a grain of salt, I think.

Yeah, I love that. So first of all, she just gave some— she says exactly great feedback, and she was, she was saying, um, that she has $130K in revenue, users in 12 countries, and 60 school contracts. That's awesome, Margo.

This is amazing.

It's like fantastic.

This is just amazing.

That's why, you know, you need to kind of talk to her and find out.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. At the end of the call, there will be my contact.

There will.

Let's chat for sure.

And Susan as well, who had to leave, is like, she definitely wants to connect. Right, so I like what Karen is saying as well, 'cause Karen is just reiterating what you're saying. She's saying it's hard when you don't fit neatly into traditional startup boxes. Absolutely, Karen, we all agree with you on that one. Now, I want to just really quickly come to the question from Lindy. So Lindy Wafulla from Kenya. So she's into social entrepreneurship. So she is saying that she works mostly with village women at grassroots of Kenya, her entrepreneurial, but lack collateral. Replace a security with banks for microloans. How could you invest in us? That's a good example, because like she's pre-seed, she'd be— she's in your emerging market. Can you answer that one?

It all actually usually starts with a deck and a call to get to know, to just talk, not a pitch call, just to talk and see if it's a fit for us or maybe a fit for someone else. And what I actually found over the time is that we're more aligned with, say, specifically, say, African investors and angels than with international global investors coming to Africa in terms of understandings and values and alignments and ability to go early as well. Yeah. And oftentimes, it would not be a fit for us for whatever reason, but we know, like, oh, it actually does make sense for this particular fintech fund or fintech angel in the area. And it was like as simple as that. I try to look to everything. I mean, I have the time to actually respond to everything in time.

Yeah.

Because we get several thousand deals a month.

Yeah.

And we're using data science to analyze all of this. So it's not like you Even though I've used to read even more decks like manually, so it's do it actually honestly doable if it's your if you just sit through it and try to analyze things. But in any case, we are just open for any cold outreach and go from there because one part is I do recognize the problem. Yes, it's not just unbanked. And it's not just microloans issue, it's systemic broken infrastructure around finance in Africa. And in Kenya, it's also hardcore regulation. Normal banks don't even understand what a self-employed person is, or startup, or small local business, unless you hit some really big threshold. And even that is not the case oftentimes to Support, and there are a bunch of local initiatives anywhere between just funding female entrepreneurs or loaning to fintechs being built in the region right now. And yeah, I mean, I do.

I mean, and thank you for answering that because it was a super detailed question. I hope that helps, Lindy. And as you can see, obviously Olga can't say. give all the information here and now, but you've got a good feel for it, and you can see she knows her stuff, and she knows also what's happening on the continent of Africa with regard to funding and so on. So I'd suggest you kind of hook up with her after. We will tell you that now, but I want to come back, Olga. Let's talk more about emerging funds as an asset class, right? So let's kind of zoom out a little bit and then come back into the— for our founders. So for all of those investors out there. And just briefly, so what is emerging funds as an asset class? Let's start from the very beginning, because people may know of kind of the key big key funds have been around forever, who've done fund after fund after fund. What is an emerging fund? Let's start there. And what is it as an asset class?

So first of all, there is a contradiction in it. The— what we operate as of today differs from the traditional definition of emerging fund managers. It used to be someone who starts their fund 1 or 2, so first maybe 4 or 5-ish years into investing.

Yeah.

Meaning that you don't really have a provable track record, as in, in numbers, or it's not a number which can guide an investor to say, yeah, it makes sense, this portfolio, this fund is going something, is going places. But these days, it's, I'd say, skewed towards first fund, first close, first fund, solo GP, venture studio sidecar funds, something which is being launched, much like pre-seed startup.

Hmm.

And something quite interesting about this is that every single fund on the planet started as a Fund one, one day, someday.

Of course, of course. But they forget it. They get big egos, don't they? I'm sorry for those of you who are those big funds, but let's just remember where you all started small at some point and started with fund one.

And interesting thing about this these days is that the whole venture is being disrupted from multiple angles simultaneously across different ecosystems and across different. Different geographies, uh, anywhere from rolling funds and RAVs to venture studios to, uh, solo GPs, uh, to first funds of smaller size. It's like $10 million, $20 million, uh, not $100— I mean, not, not $50 million, not huge funds. Uh, and there are a lot of thankfully, a lot of newcomers, outsiders to traditional Silicon Valley, New York, London networks. So people who are not coming from wealth themselves, who are coming to this because they feel it's their calling.

Yeah.

And the job they're fully prepared to do, understanding the high risk, high uncertainty in building the first fund.

Yeah.

And at the same time, offering a very unique very unusual strategies all across the world. And novel funds being launched in the United States, in Canada, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Mexico, in London, in Germany, in Lithuania, in Africa, in Nigeria, in South Africa, in Kenya, in Indonesia, in Vietnam. I mean, you name it. It's like, so far, I think, even in my network, in geographies I'm aware of, there are at least 50 different Countries where the funds have been launched these days. There's special specialty funds, generalist funds, agnostic, some industry-specific, some location-based such as Pakistan, or some region-based such as MENA, and with I don't know with some plan regulatory side, for example. All the flavors you can possibly imagine. And cool thing about it is that the first fund. of an emerging fund manager is the first and last opportunity to invest a reasonably small and also like dollar risk-weighted check into something which is going to grow quite fast, quite soon.

Mm-hmm.

So if the first fund you're raising is $20 million, then your first close is around probably $2, $3 million, and you may accept checks of even $50K. which is comparable to, say, angel checks easily.

Yeah.

But as soon as you get to the first close, you are starting to ask for checks of maybe $1 million, half a million, $1 million, with all the different limitations of how many LPs you can have as a legal structure, but also what would reasonably make sense. But if you are successful, then the next fund is going to be $60, $70 million. and checks of $50K, even $250K, doesn't make any sense.

Yeah.

So in this very first inning of novel funds, you get to be aligned for long-term generational funds in some strategies, which probably would make sense to you in some geography or in, say, climate change or in sustainability. With the checks you can do, Yeah. Because you cannot invest in Sequoia, even if you have $50 million.

Yeah.

It's not possible anymore.

Yeah.

There are multiple funds with proven strategy, with exceptional returns, but they're too big and too old, and the LPs just travel from fund to fund, and there rarely is an allocation open for anyone external, and these checks are unimaginably high. Even for Fund 2, your checks are going to be $1 million to $5 million. It's already prohibitive. So if you're looking to, if you want to be exposed to venture in the first place, if you want to be exposed to potentially great returns in this particular asset class, aligning yourself with a great founding team of emerging fund managers in these early stages of fundraising is a great strategy. And it totally makes sense. I'm a part of this Transact Global community that you know of, and there are 200 or more female fund managers building their first funds or second funds, investing in Latin America, in Africa, in Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, in London, in Canada, in the United States, in Asia, in Singapore, in China, you name it. All the choices you can possibly have. with fund sizes anywhere between $2 million to, I think, $150 million tops or something, which makes it, first of all, completely different network and completely different deal flow.

Yeah.

Another approach, especially outsider approach, because you kind of have to like build your whole way through to raise the money. And it itself makes you quite different to traditional venture funds.

Well, what I was seeing as well, though, Olga, because— so let's pause there, because I think it's so exciting. And what you're saying is, hey, like emerging funds are an incredible opportunity. If you get early in the very first phase before their first close, if it's a small fund, as you say, if you can get in in the first $2 to $3 million, your $50K can go so much further, you won't have that opportunity. So you could be putting that $50K into a startup, or you could be putting it into a fund. Both.

It could be both, you know, that's the whole point, that you get exposure to some specific deal flow and a portfolio along with your existing investments, but also you get exposed to an entirely different piece of venture ecosystem which is being formed right now. And so we all talk about that we need to support female and diversity founders more, Yeah, this is exactly this. There are 200 funds who are built by women and diversity founders, female partners. They're investing in someone completely different.

And what I love about what you're saying is 2 things. It's like, hey, this is an incredible investment opportunity, incredible opportunity to make an impact, to learn, to have fun, to have access to new networks that you wouldn't normally doing. That's what you're saying. It's like, this is a very exciting path that you should explore and could explore alongside investing in a startup as well. Why not? If you have that disposable income, invest a chunk in an emerging fund and then invest a chunk in, in a couple of startups, because you're going to see different sides of the table and you'll be exposed to different deal flow. And I think that's a really, really exciting message that you're sharing, Olga. And I also And thank you for sharing about Transact Global. I've typed in a little bit about what you were saying into the chat box for those of us who are with us live. And for those who catch the podcast and are listening, just check in the show notes because I'll link to that. The other thing that's interesting, what I'm seeing is that emerging fund managers, not only do they, when they're raising their funds and they close their funds, when they have enough money themselves, they tend to invest in other emerging fund managers. I'm seeing that happening, and that's beautiful. Tell us about that. What's your experience on that?

Well, our whole conversations around— so partially was that there are 2 to 7, depending on markets, geographies, etc., percent of all money allocated to women in the first place, and like less than 1% to diversity women. All of this is just completely ridiculous. And basically, there is this whole sheer force of change saying, okay, we are going to raise money ourselves. We are going to invest in all of this diversity, all that you can possibly imagine we always wanted to do across race and gender and sex, you name it.

Yeah.

And we're going to cover like the rest half of the market, which is now just completely invisible. And another part to this is like, let's reinforce the message in multiple ways. be angels, be scouts, build our own funds, be angel investors, invest in each other.

Yeah.

If someone in our community, latest stage fund, they are very much aligned with what we're doing, and with a few more funds, like much smaller. And they're like, yeah, as soon as we fully launched and we figure out all our budgeting and everything, and we figured our personal money is in our partners, we want to get a small check to you, to you, to you, and to you. So that's it. And our deal flows are like matching, either by stage or by some geography or by some later stage scalability, depending.

Yeah.

But there are multiple layers of how we can cooperate. And one of those is, yeah, actually being an LP in our funds. Same for us and for me personally. Yes, I want to see more exceptional investors building, helping build these companies at scale. So it's not like one startup at a time. Multiple startups getting covered by multiple funds. And so investing in other funds and supporting them on their journey is also important to me and to us. We're considering one of the vehicles in the future as not fund of funds, but something like much simpler, something just early, extremely, again, extremely early small checks to general partners in emerging funds. funds. And I was recently talking to someone on Twitter and I was like, if you would write me like $10 million, I will deploy them in 1 month's time. I already have a deal flow of emerging fund managers. We have a deal flow of exceptional founders.

Yes.

And I've been exposed to whatever is happening in venture ecosystem right now. I'm exposed to solo and solo GPs and fund managers. I'm like, give us $20 million, we will deploy them in 6 months in founders in emerging markets. Give us $10 million, we will deploy them in 20-ish, I get around 20 more funds in a month. I mean, it's not a joke. We've been all through this together in the last couple of years. I for sure got to know their teams, their phases, where they're coming from, their strengths, I can pitch instead of them. Yeah, much like founders, I can pitch instead of them. I don't need to like dig deeper and understand. We get to talk, we get to work together a bit, and we're like, yeah, it totally makes sense, we want to invest, this is absolutely wonderful. And then I can talk instead of the founder easily because I deeply understand what, what they're doing, partially from my background but partially from just empathy. I mean, come on, empathy-driven funds, that's It shouldn't be, it shouldn't sound like insanity. I think it should be normal.

I love it. I love, you've just said the soundbite. You're saying empathy-driven funds shouldn't sound like insanity. It should be the norm. I love it. And you're so right. Okay. So tell us a little bit more. So you're currently raising your first fund. What has the process been like? So you're raising what? You're raising a €20 million fund, correct?

It's a question which we can actually discuss on air in this regard, but like, I think I'm fascinated with the journey of fundraising.

Yeah.

Because you get to see exceptional thinkers all the time, and you get to see more and more aligned people what you do every day.

Yeah.

And for sure, it's much like for founders, for fund managers, it's the same. You have to have patience. You have to know exactly what you're doing and why, where you stand for, because you will need a lot of patience. For fund managers and the risks we're taking, it's very simple math, actually. First year, at least, maybe less, maybe a bit more, you're spending on only team building, strategy thesis, talking to founders, figure out your differentiated approach and deal flow. You don't get to invest, you don't get to fundraise, you're just building the ropes of the business.

Yeah.

Then you start fundraising. Fundraising goes anywhere between 6 to 24 months easily. All of these, all of this time, you are pretty much full-time, maybe with some side hustles, in a high uncertainty, in a high-risk environment, building something based on pretty much a pager, like a summary, until you hit at least first close and get to register and get first investments out of the door. But at the same time, it's like the whole journey itself is It's kind of, you get to do this when you are absolutely sure this is what you want to do with your life. Because having complete uncertainty on how long would it take, what will be asked of you, if you have networks sufficient enough to help you fundraise, if you will even get to fundraise, if you will find like a great early team that will join you that early with no salaries and no— like prospect of salary in at least some time ahead. You, like, people who are sourcing this, especially these days, especially outsiders, extremely brave, and people who really want to do this. It's not a random choice.

Yeah.

It's very eye-opening and very clear, like, yes, I am taking this risk because I want to be a part of this and help build innovations And invest in exceptional talents, and help them build whatever they require to help them whatever they need. Yeah, it's it's generational play. You choose something you're going to do the rest of your life. So whenever you're fundraising, you keep in mind that you're choosing your LPs consciously. You're choosing your founders consciously because like again ethics like these are the people you're going to work. for decades ahead. You want to make sure you are aligned. It's not just, oh, let's— here, here is our offer, here's our proposition, here's our track record, here we are as a team, we are raising to deploy in here, and oh, you have money, cool, let's go. No, it doesn't work this way.

Or let's just say it doesn't work that way. It may have worked that way for a lot of very rich white pale guys, right? I'm being a bit No one— Okay, I said it. Sorry, guys. But it has been a model, let's say, that has been successful in the past for that type of thing. But what you're describing is a new way forward. It's about building a new way of doing it. And thank you for sharing about the journey of being an emerging fund manager, because it's so important. Margot was saying, yes, Anne, say that again. It's like, whoa, it is. We need to, in order to build the new way, we got to think differently. And you think very differently. And I love that you're very clearly saying on this podcast, on this webinar, this is what it takes to do it. You know, if you want to go down this path, you've got to be in it really for the long term, but beyond what was, what, you know, traditional VCs would be saying. Of course, they'd say, yeah, of course, it's long term, it's 7, 10 years or whatever. That's fundamental. And then another 10. We're in this for 20 years. Yeah, that's their reality. But what you're talking about is changing the system and changing the game. So it requires an even thicker skin, an even stronger implication, as you say, because we're not starting from the same space. We're not starting from—

That's true. Plus, there are exceptional investors in traditional venture, for sure, historical figures. But then again, like 80% of venture funds, they could easily close tomorrow. Nobody will even think about it twice.

Yeah.

A lot of people who have no clue what they're doing, with no thesis or strategy whatsoever, except just the ability to tap into great high net worths several years ago, because they know someone or studied with someone, and that's it. And they keep supporting some nonsense, or some unsustainable models or hype, you know, overheat deals. And it doesn't bring anything novel. It doesn't bring any reasonable change. It doesn't produce meaningful outcomes. It doesn't even generate reasonable returns. Because if you look into PitchBook numbers, like 80% of venture funds produce 5% and less in returns, it's even worse than S&P. I mean, come on, guys, that's the reality of it. So aligning with what you do for sure is important, but also knowing that this type of investment play is your game, that you know that you can achieve reasonably great returns outsized returns, you actually learn every single day more and more. It's a reasonable probability that you can do it well and continuously do it well in a repeatable manner.

Yeah.

And the noble emerging fund managers are coming over because they know they've done it before, not in the form of venture fund, for example, but they know they've done that before, and they know that they can find something completely unusual and outside anyone's viewpoint and see it hit crazy numbers like 100x returns in a matter of a few years. Because they tapped into something rare, but also tapped into their deep knowledge and their belief in people. It's, I mean, There are many. Well, to be honest, it doesn't even have to be a venture structure. It could be private equity or hedge funds or funds of funds. It's less to do with the structure. It's more to do with what exactly you are doing with money, how you're managing other people's money, who are you working with, what is conflicts of interest, how you're solving them.

Yeah.

What is it that you're trying to achieve? And if in these asset class, you can reasonably outperform your category or your region, or depending on who you talk to in investors who can back you up.

I love it. It's so refreshing to hear you, Olga. It's so— isn't that right, guys? For those of us who are live with us, what do you say? Come on, put it in the chat box because she's just phenomenal, isn't she? Like, people are just lapping up your words. Karen was saying she loves it. Empathy-driven funds, you know, she absolutely loves it, and she's saying it's so encouraging, and it is encouraging because we need people like you, Olga, and the other incredible 200 female fund managers that are in Transact Global, and the other ones that we don't know out there. We need you all.

Plenty, plenty. I think every every now and then I get to meet founders who all. to angel investors. And I'm like, yeah, this is awesome.

Thank you.

Partially, you have both hats simultaneously to your own business, but you're also continuously deploying to the ecosystem outside. There should be more opportunities to invest, even with much smaller checks. There should be more investors, definitely more investors to leverage the whole value creation. So, to deploy capital at scale in multiple companies and founders. I do believe that there should be some vehicles which will finally support normally small local businesses.

Yeah.

Not a venture type of return, completely different financial structure, completely different approach to like structuring the investments itself, but there should be more ways to support talents, to invest in, say, in a scientist, in a musician, to let them just do do their work. Yeah, to support fundamental research, to support small local businesses, support communities. And there are various things happening in crypto, in blockchain technology itself, but also with DAOs these days. But I don't think it's going to be like one path. I'm pretty sure it will be multiple pathways in investing in talents in different forms, different shapes and forms. And the structure of finance is going say invest in fundamental science could be 50-year bonds. Yeah, but it will allow to sustainably invest in science and decouple from government expenditures programs, which tend to be cut down as soon as it's a new crisis at the door.

Yeah, I love that. That's really intelligent. You see, this is— that's the way, like, you are one of these super innovative thinkers, and I wish more governments would listen to you because we need you. We need you at high, high levels. across and we'll make sure that happens. So as we kind of round up, because we're, we're going to go a little bit over time, it's fine, we're 5 minutes over, but I think we'll probably hang on for another 15 minutes for those who are live if you want to. Is that okay with you, Olga?

Yeah, absolutely.

She's all excited now, she's warmed up, she's ready, she's got it, it's cool. So Karen is saying that she's gearing up for her first race and she's preparing herself for hearing, you're too early. She says this helps and motivates You're helping to motivate her so much in the head. EdTech and health tech, thank you. That's what she's saying, Karen. And Lindy is saying, indeed, let's get funded. Thank you for all. So she's brilliant. Thank you, Lindy. That's great. We do need to get funded. We all need to do it. And it's about— That's what is exciting about this is we have to change this funding game. And it's one of those things, it's like, what, what needs to change in this world of funding? You've said all quite a bit about it. You've said we need to have new asset classes because you're talking about the emerging fund managers. Also, why not create specific new vehicles for funding fundamental science? Love your idea of the 50-year bonds. Brilliant. We need to create these more innovative— and how do we support local businesses in a different way? Brilliant. So, like, what if you had to sum it up in one phrase? What needs to change in this funding world? I can't believe I've made you silent. That's impossible, Olga.

That's a challenge. Be authentic.

I love it.

One of the things which we're deeply passionate about, and it's a part of our inherent fundamental structure fund thesis is that we want to bring more opportunities for people to do what they love.

Yeah.

So, talent investing is not just like investing in someone, it's building more and more various different opportunities and infrastructures, which allow people to do what they want to do and find meaningful income, be that a gig economy, or their own business, small local business, coffee shop or startup or funds, it doesn't matter. But I'm so tired seeing, say, artists not being able to choose to be full-time, 100% artists or a philosopher, you know, without thinking that, oh, but I will have to sustain for 5 more extra jobs till the rest of my life to actually do my art or my philosophy or my research. I find it completely ridiculous. And building platforms which allow people to earn by doing what they love and finding these pathways, different careers, choices, strategies, works, side gigs, or own businesses, or sell platforms like writing books and promoting them from some— something like Gumroad, or building small local business somewhere in Kenya. And not taking like too much of a headache for like the whole backend.

Yep, go on. And I'm just— and so Margo has just added in here. So Margo, she's back. She says, I've just secured 2 lead investors for my seed round, or $1.3 million.

Yoo-hoo!

And they are injecting $450K in capital. One of the investors wants a board seat at this seed stage. Is that common? And also, who should she target when wanting to ensure that she's bringing value to her company and not just capital? 2 good questions. So what about the first question? They want a board seat, they're putting $450K, should they get a board seat at seed round?

There are 2 quick— do you hear me?

I can hear you.

I think your video was stuck in a bit. Oh, okay. So one thing about board seats, Actually, it probably depends, but board seats don't really make sense till, A, when you are operational and scalable company. Otherwise, you would just get stuck into unnecessary yet burden.

Mm-hmm.

What might be reasonable to do is to negotiate that maybe it becomes— it really, really depends on the conditions. and terms that they're facing, to be honest.

Mm-hmm.

But what does make sense is between seed and A to learn what it would mean to have a board seat, the board, and what this part of corporate management is going to look like. And that's going to be a part of your business journey from that point on. At seed stage, I know a lot of investors are asking for it, We don't— it doesn't make much sense at this point. It's too early. It's too early for any seasoned corporate activity. It will just drag a lot of time from founders on preparing for boards, on doing presentations, on trying to solve something instead of just digging as fast as possible till you get to a proven unit economics and business model. and bottlenecks and scalability to A, where you're raising for actual huge scalability. In there, you do need decent corporate management experience. And at that stage, normally you would even hire someone, like find a long-term co-founder for an option, or someone as advisor, let alone board seats. So, you will be trained from that point continuously, and At least one year before A, you would start learning what it would mean, because you're going to change from searching for a business into operationally scaling the business. Those are two different— pre-seed plus seed and A and later are two completely different models of operation.

Yes.

Other than that, it's like you can't give a common advice in this. Yes, if you feel that's not really what you want to do and it's not really a fit, at least you should sit with your investors and discuss what exactly would it look like, what exactly are their expectations, how much time do they think you will allocate to this, and if they think it's reasonable that at seed stage you're going to spend a total maybe a month of all the year to these corporate governance instead of doing it much later stage. Another— there was a good comment about—

Well, just on that, because what she was saying there is like, I think they want a board seat at this stage because they feel she's going to scale quickly. And it's a requirement for their funding this round. So they're putting it in as a term, which is a bit early.

Again, so there are different things in here. That's first, you are as much as equal as they are to this negotiation. So if anything feels strange or weird or uncomfortable to you, it should be a part of conversation.

Yeah.

If you don't feel yourself communicating that, invite someone with you, be that your lawyer or like not one founder talking, but all of the team talking, but gets to at least some agreeable position on this, and what are the expectations in different shapes and forms.

Yeah.

Generally, yes, I would agree that it's super early to get support. I know that it's a part of requirements, especially for like more traditional funds, But there should be some common sense to this as well. I like that. I wanted to make a comment about this, you're always too early. What's the— how we usually deal with this, I dealt before, before starting the fund, just working with founders would be, let's sit down and think. So here is your founder product market fit. You are uniquely positioned to build this specific thing in this particular market. with expectation of venture type of growth. Who would make most sense for you to have on a cap table today to get to the next stage tomorrow?

Yeah.

In different ways, to next stage of fundraising, in next stage of revenues, proving unit economics, you name it.

Yeah.

All that you think as the next stage. And then like re-engineer from there, on, okay, so what is our alignment and skill sets? What are our superpowers as founders? And what are our strategic gaps? Who we need as co-thinkers?

Yeah.

And smart connected money around us to make this happen and make this work.

Yeah.

And you start basically re-engineering down to, okay, we need someone with this type of skill set or experience. We need someone who, if feel fully good about investing in early stage, such as an angel or syndicate, investing maybe $50K check and we're raising $200K. So we need like maybe 4 people. So it gives you a short list of maybe 50 people, long list maybe of 100 people to research. But if you start thinking carefully, you would see that, oh, in your own industry, there are several super angels well-known in your own region who are investing in this sector. And if you will reach out to them on cold, they most likely will respond. So even if you don't yet have early-stage funds, you always have options, but you have to start with yourself, with who I want to work with, who will be the best fit for my business, who will make the most sense, and then cut it out into, okay, what stage are we raising? Who is going to look at us depending on our stage of development, who would make most sense in terms of checks, and then start not the fundraising, start the customer development. Just talk to a few people and like, what does it look to you as an investor? What it— if it makes sense, if it doesn't make sense, if I should just start fundraising in 2 months when I will hit this and this number, or I should just completely forget about venture funds and concentrate only on angels and syndicates, maybe some friends, if that's an opportunity, possibly. But regardless, you have to decompose it from who you want to see there and why, what's their leverage, how they can help you to build the business, and what you can reasonably raise. And those things, like, usually in, like, in common sense-ish. Our take is on being extremely early, partially because we do see this huge gap around all the world, across all ecosystems and all geographies, that there are just accelerators, angels, and some venture studios in early stages. And we think it's like venture capital didn't— wasn't like that. You would go down Sand Hill Road, what, 30, 40 years ago, knock on the door of a garage, say, is there— do you need money? I mean, it used to be investing in people. And it should be that again, but in terms of even our fund strategy and fundraising strategy, it's— this is the gap we see in the ecosystem, and we want to close this gap in specific markets. And this is exactly our leverage, and this is where all our expertise comes to. But it also means that we would be able to support grassroots communities and early-stage innovations and create a much larger deal flow for everybody else.

I like that. That's the other piece, the other advantage of the emerging fund managers. You create larger deal flow for the next. I like that. Okay, so we need to kind of come in the last— this is the quickfire questions because we're going to wrap up. So how can we put some more fun into funding, Olga?

Why don't we fund the circus?

I love it. Why don't we fund the circus?

You're so funny.

How can our listeners and our viewers contact you? There's a few people who are like, oh my God, I love her, I want to talk to her. So what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Uh, I will send all the links, but our website, my email, my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my partner's LinkedIn, uh, Slack. I mean, Like, oh, I will send all the links anywhere. I don't care, honestly. Um, we have probably 50 different ways to connect to founders, funds, investors, partners, emerging fund managers, uh, everywhere across, uh, the world.

Yeah.

Uh, if it makes sense, I will read it. I don't care who you're coming from, where, who you know, couldn't care less. what's written on your page, couldn't care less on your Facebooks, Googles, blah, blah, blah. If you're doing something really exceptional, I want to know you. If it's some, I don't know, nonsense covered by I am ex-Googler, then sorry, we definitely are not a fit. As simple as that.

Okay. And what would be your quick dos for female founders raising funding? The key things they need to do and the key don'ts.

One thing I think common for everybody is specifying your uniquely positioned founder to build this particular product in this particular market as specific as possible. It's like, why you? Nobody else. And the trick in here is that recognize your own and your team's superpowers.

Yeah.

Nobody can copy you.

Yeah.

So, the better you understand your unique superpowers and how they get to play in the products you're building, and all your experience, all your pains you want to solve, all the things you see around you want to make better, The easy it is to actually invest because there is like a strong resonance between who you are and what you're building. Nobody can copy because nobody can be you. And that's that's like one part. And like being quite open about what venture fund is not necessarily it's like venture capital, not necessarily fit for everyone. Yeah, you could be using crowdfunding, crowd investing, rolling. Funds, strategic investors, building to mergers and acquisitions, doing equity hire. There are so, so, so many options depending on your strategy, your vision, what's your exit mentality in this. If you want to do this, not in terms of finance, in terms of, I want to work on this for the next maybe 5-ish years and then do something else. Like, what is your way through? What will be the most reasonable thing to do this, to build up to some level and then say sell to someone or do an equity hire, do an acquisition, or find a strategic investor and rehire the team and sell shares to the team. There are so, so many options, but you have to be very clear on what are you agreeing yourself into. And if venture is your type of play, Then you'd rather like you would yourself actually want to know that you are aligned with this type of growth, and you know why are you here, what are you doing, and how how different you are in the fields to be competitive, to be investable, like all of those things. In another part for specifically for female, I guess to like be aware. There are a lot of assholes, predators, toxic people.

Yeah.

And whenever you feel even slightly uncomfortable, it's the the only reasonable thing to do is to say, okay, thank you, goodbye, and put this person to a block list. Just forget about it.

Yeah.

There probably will be enough of people who would be forcing you to do something or telling you, teaching you mental. explain you, like all this kind of bullshit. The better you know yourself and more confident you are in what you're building and doing, the easier it will be to trigger a sense of uncomfortableness and run away from this immediately. So, like, just not be there at all.

Trust yourself, trust your guts, and don't let that— I love it. Okay.

Yeah, and we kind of— there are a lot of things happening right now, in, in across female communities around the world in these workshops on how to deal with, say, a predator or with sociopathic person as a founder, as an investor, as an angel. Like, there are magnitude of issues out there, and there are a bunch of things happening around the globe, like sharing knowledge, red flags, playbooks, what to do with this, along with how to build pathways, whom to talk to whenever you are looking for your investors. There is a huge network of female angels and founders. It's written, I will send a bunch of links actually on this one.

Yeah, you're gonna share them with us.

Networks of managers, of angels across Europe and United States, at least some in Latin America, some angels who only deploying in female and diversity LGBTQ-driven businesses. And so that also helped there.

I got Arlen here.

Exactly.

I love her so much.

All these things, they kind of helped to avoid a bunch of legacy issues and white boys club. I mean, it's so tough. I mean, it's so tough. I don't even— I'm so tired of talking about it. Talking about this, it's just here is a piece of a playfield I don't want to ever know about. They will never hear from me. They will never see a deal flow from me. They will never be connected with any one of founders I work with, ever. They are in full block list for magnitude of reasons, from being a complete bullshitter to being a sexual predator, even not proven, but as in like outsits in. With legal, but completely proven by the community. It's like, yeah, these people are not getting anywhere, and the sooner they will just disappear, the better.

I love it, I love it. And that's— we are totally aligned on that. And so I would like to kind of end on that note and to say thank you so much, Olga, because wow, it's been a whirlwind. I knew it would be. I knew because I, I just know you're—

It's fun talking to you.

It's always fun, and I'm just so glad that we got to share this conversation with everybody. So whether you you're watching us live, watching this on YouTube as a recording, or listening to a podcast as you're walking around on your walk with your dog or whatever. We hope you've really enjoyed it. Oh, these are show notes. Catch the show notes because we will share all the great resources and links that Olga will be sharing. Margo is saying great conversation. Please do put in, give her a bit of feedback here live because I always love that for those who are live. So Margo is saying a great conversation for those that come on the other ones. Tell us, Tim, your question was asked earlier on, so you may have missed it live, but we did ask and answer your question. So don't worry, you'll get it. Um, so thank you so much, Olga, for being with us. Um, we look forward to hearing more about Improved Ventures. Everybody, you know, check them out, whether you are— I hope we've made you curious. If you are, you know, a high net worth person and who had never thought about emerging funds as an asset class, check them out. Improved Ventures is one of them, and there are others there. So you'll learn more here. I just— it's great to open your mind when you think of portfolio, having a portfolio and a diverse portfolio. Put emerging funds now into your portfolio. That's what we're very firmly saying. Put it into your picture. If it aligns with your values, being authentic and really making a big change in the world, you know, just start thinking differently. As well as investing still in startups. Of course, we will always say that to you, and female-led and different underserved.

Like my favorite comedian, Tim Minchin, is saying, if you will open your mind wide enough, your brain will fall out.

I love it.

Let's keep the mind open. I mean, there are so many fantastic things in the world to do and discover.

That's it. And we need your money to do it. That's what we're saying. So whether you invest in a fund, or you invest in founders, or invest in both, Help us change the world together. Thank you so much, Olga, for this wonderful, wonderful conversation. Thank you all for being with us live. Enjoy this, and then stay tuned for our next upcoming funding conversation. And let's stay tuned, Olga, and then, you know, let's do another funding conversation, you know, next year to touch base and see where you're at and how you're changing the world, because I know you are. So thank you so much for being with us.

Thanks so much for inviting me. It's been such fun. It's been so much fun.

We've gone well over, but hey, I think we got some people right till the very end. And thank you to all of you who've stayed right till the very end.

We appreciate it. Thanks everyone.

Thanks everyone.

Attention is the rarest form of generosity. I think everyone's the best.

It really is. Very well said. Thank you. And we really do— we're grateful for you. To the listeners, you love this, keep— share this podcast episode when it comes out. Share it with everybody. You've got to listen to all the You gotta miss it. You gotta, you gotta meet her, what she's gotta say. Thank you all. Take care. Have a great rest of your day.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to InvestHer Podcast. Don't miss more great funding tips and insights by subscribing to the podcast on Apple or your favorite podcast host. And while you're there, I'd love you to rate and review the show. We'd love to hear from you. So if you'd like to send in some questions interact with our guests, or suggest other great people we should feature, join our community on the Flick InvestHer group. Or send us a message on investherpodcast.com. Want more great resources for female founders about funding? Check out our InvestHer Academy at academy.globalinvesther.com. I'm Anne Ravanona and look forward to having you with us again for our next episode. Let's put the fun into funding and get more women entrepreneurs funded.