OKAPI
PHILOSOPHY
We believe we serve two mutually-dependent customer bases: our investors (a.k.a. “limited partners”) and the entrepreneurs we partner with. We believe a tremendous opportunity has been created in the earliest stages of private investing by the migration of institutional venture capital funds towards greater fund sizes and larger investments into the later-stages of each company (a.k.a. the “Series A gap”). We work daily to prove that our skill sets are particularly well suited to investing in such technology startups during their seed phases in Southern California. We believe we can focus such new companies’ progress and accelerate their achievement of definitive milestones as well as prepare them for follow-on investments in the later-stages by combining our technical / operational / legal / investing expertise and capital.
INVESTMENT CRITERIA
We are looking for capital efficient technology startups with a differentiated and sustainable competitive advantage targeting large, addressable and growing markets with clear operational and financial objectives based on early milestones/proofs of concept that are value-adding and reduce risk. Our ideal management teams (however incomplete at the time of the investment!) will be able and willing to work closely with us to develop their startups and turn them into scalable businesses.
INVESTMENT PROCESS
If you think you have an opportunity that fits our model and philosophy, just contact the appropriate investment professional directly via email with a short description of what it is you are up to and we can go from there. If there is interest after the initial information has been provided, we will contact you to arrange a call or meeting (depending on the logistics and our level of interest). If there is continued mutual interest in working together after our initial call/meeting, we will instruct you from there as to next steps. We take board or board observer seats on all the companies we invest in and actively work to help the companies grow their respective businesses.
WHAT WE INVEST IN
STAGE
We are a seed stage venture capital fund. As such, we make our initial investment into technology startups during their “seed phase” before they have established product-market-fit. What does this mean? This means we invest in start-ups looking for their first institutional money and, in some cases, their first outside money altogether. For example, most of the startups we have invested in have been pre-revenue when we made our initial investment.
WE ARE A SEED STAGE VENTURE CAPITAL FUND
SECTORS OF INTEREST
We currently invest in seed stage startups in both the enterprise and consumer technology sectors. In prior funds, we also invested in medical device and medical diagnostic startups. We have a particular fondness for multidisciplinary opportunities that capitalize on the convergence of multiple technologies. Please see our Portfolio for a representative list of our current investments.
SIZE
We prefer to invest in capital efficient technology startups and will typically invest $750K to $3M (on average) over the life of the company in which we invest.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
In addition to investing in the companies in the aforementioned sectors at the aforementioned stages, we have a particular emphasis on investment opportunities that are here in southern California. We truly believe that Southern California has all the raw materials necessary to be a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in and of itself.
WE CURRENTLY INVEST IN SEED STAGE STARTUPS IN BOTH THE ENTERPRISE AND CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY SECTORS.
GEOGRAPHY & DEMOGRAPHICS
Southern California, often referred to as the “Tech Coast” is comprised of a handful of counties from Santa Barbara in the north to San Diego and the Mexican Border in the south and is home to approximately 26 million residents. The region is a bastion of entrepreneurship and is filled with 536,758 small (< 99 employees) businesses across a breadth of industries according to a Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp survey.
KNOWLEDGE AS CAPITAL
Southern California has more research universities than any location in the United States and is home to 5 University of California Campuses (Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Irvine, Riverside, and San Diego), 10 California State University campuses, CalTECH, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, Loyola Marymont University, the Claremont Colleges, and the University of San Diego as well as various research institutes. Furthermore, these colleges and universities are determinedly international and Southern California is a leader in the nationwide enrollment of more than 550,000 foreign students at U.S. universities.