Adam Torres and Saurabh Suri discuss the Korea Conference.
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Show Notes:
Listen to coverage of The Korea Conference in Marina Del Rey, California. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Saurabh Suri, Managing Partner at CerraCap Ventures, explore CerraCap Ventures and the Korea Conference.
Watch Full Interview:
About CerraCap Ventures
We invest in disruptive companies with potential to dominate global markets. We look for companies and entrepreneurs with fundamentally strong business model. We take the time and effort to understand each idea and decide on its merits and potential through our comprehensive evaluation process.
Through our network and access to large corporations, we are able to further validate companies that can readily meet demand of large corporations and help them innovate in today’s digital world. We provide support to generating sales with large Fortune 500 clients. We help companies to scale and deliver through leveraging access to a network of engineers.
Our Advisory Board also provides mentoring support to the Management Team of the portfolio companies. We focus on three areas where we have significant domain and vertical expertise – Healthcare, Analytics and Cyber Security. This also brings in cross company leverage opportunities.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I’m in Marina del Rey, California at the Korea Conference 2024. Let me tell you, this has been a lot of fun. And I was able to snag Saurabh from the crowd. And man, I haven’t seen you in a long time.
Welcome on the show. Is this the first time on the show? I think so, right? Pretty much, pretty much. We both refused to interview each other. And today, before the alcohol starts, I think we agreed and we have a deal. And it’s recorded that I get, I got, I get to interview you at the end as well. Game on. I’m in.
And I guess just to get us kicked off here, like what brings you to the conference this year? A combination of really good friends, great organizers, and an absolute promise of a whole list of amazing startups and amazing people to interact with. Yeah, and honestly, you’re on a boat in Marina del Rey. How wrong that you get.
That does not hurt, right? Does not. And I know the food last year was delicious too. And we got some presentations. Let’s do some pitches. I’m, I’m excited. There you go. Absolutely. So talk a little bit more about your company and what you do for the, for the listeners that haven’t seen your work. Sure. So, I’m managing partner at CeraCap Ventures.
We’re an early stage VC fund based out of Orange County in LA. Investing in early stage startups in just three areas of tech, what we call the healthy, secure planet. All right. So that’s healthcare, security, which is both cyber security and national security, and planet tech, and even more specifically ag tech.
Early stage being seed to series A, and we kind of work in a slightly different way. So we don’t. Going to a large portfolio, but we have something we call a sales and scale model, which is Every company we invest in, we actually drive sales in a show, you know, a piece. So, you know, if you’re an early stage startup, your first four to 6 million in revenue, your first key market clients will come directly through us.
What I always also say is we don’t make introductions when we bring purchase orders. Wow. And so I want to go a step further there because when I found a lot, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders that watch this show, When they’re thinking about whom to partner with, that’s one of the, that’s one of the benefits, but you just talked about, like many people haven’t heard that there’s a little bit of a slightly different model.
Yeah. And for us, really, it started with, I mean, you know, all the folks at CeraCap, we’ve all been entrepreneurs ourselves, right? And you know, many, and I see most like good institutional investors, they talk about being value added investors, right? So what it really comes down to is what is that definition of value and does it align with what you need?
Right. And value being as esoteric as it is, comes in various shapes and forms. So yeah. And remember venture capital, and especially early stage venture capital, I call it, you know, it’s almost a 10 year marriage. Yeah. Right. So you, you have to know certain things upfront and whether those value drivers of the people you’re partnering with, Manjum, with your value drivers.
What are some of the things you look for in founders? Well, one thing I like to say, and it’s. A bit away from a lot of, I’d call it standard due diligence processes is that, you know, the way we put it is I invest in the jockey, not the horse. That’s actually very critical in the early stages when, when you go in.
So what, what is that spark that we look in founders, right? I think there are about a whole bunch of them, but really it comes down to two things. Does the founder have the vision? Yeah. And does the founder have the ability to execute against that vision right now? Under these two things, there are multiple aspects and factors that we definitely look at within the founders, but really it boils down to those two things.
I’ve seen a lot of founders who are just phenomenal operationally, but the vision is a man, many that have amazing visions, but you know, brilliant vision, but he doesn’t have the team around him to actually execute against that. So that’s, the things I look at founders on. And there’s one third piece as well, which is how good a team has that founder Yeah.
We’ve come across a lot of situations where the founder owns 95 percent and he’s just hired, you know, five or 10 people. And by the way, that’s not a wrong model. Right. And I’ve seen some great founders you know, execute great against that. But we like to see that ecosystem, that team that the founder has been able to bring.
At the early stage itself to actually have her launch on me. So it’s 2024. We’re in August. You don’t have to say a drop a company name or anything, but it could be a technology. It could be a product. It could be like, what excites you right now? What are you looking at? It could be an industry, like in general.
So what’s getting you excited? What’s going on in that office right now? There are two things that have me really excited. Okay. One is cliched. One’s not that cliched. The cliched part is. Okay. I’m loving watching the evolution of AI right now. Right. And you have to understand that we’ve been investing in AI for a little over 20 years.
Yeah. Not today. You said 20, two zero. So decades. And so it’s not like just, you know, it was a thing. Yeah. Right. So, but seeing that and watching that next evolution of AI going from its current hype. To its current execution is a lot of fun to it is right now, right? And as we go into generic AI and LLMs, et cetera, to domain specific, and we are B2B guys.
So yeah, you have to pardon me. Always the enterprise B2B, but. Seeing that evolution to domain specific AI that actually produces something. Listen, I’ve got pitches here five, six years ago. Yeah, it’s all AI. What does it do? It’s all AI. What does it do? It’s all AI. Right. And that understanding that people are now getting, which people in the industry knew earlier, but sometimes in certain cases, and I get into trouble for saying this, that the data is more valuable than the algorithm.
Yes. And seeing that come into general understanding. So that’s one thing that’s got me super excited. And the second aspect is really in healthcare, right? Where we’ve actually. Quadruple the focus in there. Wow. Again, looking at all of these technologies, not just AI, but several of these other technologies, including communication technologies kind of come together to address a lot of key issues, you know, both nation centric, as well as the overall healthcare centric and healthcare, that’s very exciting.
Yeah, actually looking at a couple of companies using AI to detect biomarkers with existing data. There’s another company that’s using AI to, you know, will cut the time to detect autoimmune diseases that, by the way, sometimes can take three, four years to do. And they’re doing it in like three to six months.
Wow, that’s amazing. Saving lives like that’s impact like beyond the standard use of the word impact, right? So anyways, that’s, what’s keeping me excited. And as a nerd, you know, answer, I can go on till tomorrow morning, but I’ll stop here. All good. I know you got things to do, man. I know I snagged you from the conference.
Last thing I want you to start looking to the camera. If people want to follow you, your journey, company, anything else, how can they do that? Absolutely. So go to serracap. com C E R R A C A P. Look up the other team members. They’re way smarter, better, and more. Up there that me and if none of that works talk to Adam Game on and for everybody watching just so you know We’ll put the links to the to the website the show notes so you can just click on it and head right on over and Speaking of the audience if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet Hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and we’ll see you next time. And so thanks again so much. Appreciate you, man. Always Adam and you take care.