Abrahamson shared advice for startups wanting to understand the process of investments and valuations. A must-read for tech founders: What do you look for when making the decision to invest? What is your process like? What is typically your bite size? Does this change depending on where the company is based? Our filter process: Do we think you can make cities better? Specifically, can you have an impact in areas like – reducing energy usage and associated climate impact, improving mobility of people and things (faster, better, cheaper), improve service delivery from water and waste to social services and public safety. Do we think you can scale to 100 cities in 5 years? We use this filter because of previous experience with firms like ZocDoc and observations about scale for firms like Zipcar or Uber. Then we look at team. Our definition of talent is probably not too different than most, but we like to focus on why people are starting a company and look at how they have demonstrated examples of resilience. We think financial motivation is generally not a good reason to start a company – there are probably better ways to make money. Finally, we look at the product or service. We’re interested in something that can be shipped to an initial group of customer who are willing to pay. But we tend to talk a lot about adjacent possibilities – i.e. what becomes possible once you reach certain points that might lead to new opportunities. When was the last time you made an investment? So far this year, investment has been relatively low in South Florida. In your opinion, why do you think so? What is a common mistake made by startups when they are negotiating terms? Who would be invited to your fantasy dinner? (Dead or Alive)
