Welcome to Blue Lake's January's update. The goal of this newsletter, as always, is to provide an ongoing view of Blue Lake's management teams progress in building a new VC fund and create a unique bridge between the two startup communities Ukraine – and the UK.
In this update
Blue Lake Fundraising. Latest updates, progress, challenges
Best practices for VC looking to work with dealflow partners. Tips on the most effective way of working with deal flow partners
Blue Lake & Corporate Innovation Partners. DTEK in London, Hilti looks into recycling
Offers - 15% off from LBS
Informal - Expanse books vs series
Blue Lake Fundraising
As everyone got back from holiday, we have seen a significant uptick in interest from Limited Partners in Blue Lake. The clear investment thesis and strong pipeline and deal flow is definitely a plus. The challenges that we face are the once that all emerging VC managers have and we are very grateful to have the interest we had so far.
If you are a Limited Partner would like to find out more about Blue Lake's VC thesis and investment plans, please reply to this email and we will setup an introduction call.
Best practices for VC looking to work with dealflow partners
We continue to experience a high interest from VC firms looking to access our deal flow in Ukraine. Usually, we share tips with startups on how to best prepare for a VC meeting. Today I would like to turn the tables a little and share our thoughts on the best practices for VC's when working with deal sourcing partners.
The first thing to highlight is that unless your dealflow partners are a government agency or an NGO, startups referrals are expensive. I mean time, but the old proverb holds. We have calculated that each referral costs us on average around 3 hours in, meeting, record keeping, initial due diligence and follow-ups. This places significant constraints on how many startups we can realistically refer to and how many VCs.
So what is the best way to become the go-to VC for your referral partners? Here are my tips for Blue Lake.
1. Become Blue Lake's LP and gain a 100% ongoing access to the entire deal flow. Investing in a fund may not be feasible for most VCs, but the reality is that this is the only way we can open up our entire deal flow. Alternatively, become more involved with us as a mentor or advisor. 2. Be clear about your preferences. While we will happily forward a relevant deal to the generalist fund, we would first try and match managers' investment preferences. We note your focus in our CRM, and when the appropriate opportunity arrives, we will first try and match the like with like. 3. Do not ghost. If the forwarded deal is not a match, or you cannot invest for some reason let us know. If a VC simply ignores a referral, we will not waste time going forward and exclude him or her from future communications. 4. Feedback. The more feedback we get (positive or negative) the better we can match you with relevant startups going forward.
Blue Lake & Corporate Innovation Partners
We continue building up our partnership links with innovation teams within large multinationals. This effort is in line with the focus on support and go-to-market strategy for our startups. Much more to follow in this space, especially after the lockdown meahwhile some intresting updates from the corporate innovations teams we have a pleasure of working with
DTEK, the largest energy firm in Ukraine, is expanding it presence in London by establishin a new investment hub primarily concerns renewable energy sources, energy storage systems and hydrogen energy projects. We are really excited about this particular development as it contirnues to build the bridges between pur two favourite eco-systems.
Hilti's Technology Office - has now expanded its interests in the recycling technologies in the construction space.
Offers
Our friends from the London Business School have offered a 15% to Blue Lake club on their five-week Innovation in the Digital World course. Our own Lyubov Guk, took it and we can recommend it. Contact me for more information.
Informal
I am bringing back the 'Informal' section because I can. 'The Expanse' James Corey. The TV show is good, really good and it is fun to see the showrunners paying attention to things like inertia and the laws of physics in general. But yes I will be that guy, the books are just so much better!
Best regards David
Commentaires