Investor Connect - 677 - Sophie Liao of Oyster Ventures
On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Sophie Liao, Founding Partner at Oyster Ventures.Oyster Ventures is a seed-stage-focused venture fund based in San Francisco, New York, and Hong Kong. They target companies that bring liquidity and efficiency to antiquated industries and with massive potential to scale. Since 2016, they have launched three funds and deployed capital into 80+ startups. Their checks start at $25k to $200k, from Pre-Seed to Series Seed. They typically continue to invest in their portfolio companies from Series A to C and beyond, and they can write checks up to $5M+. Oyster Ventures generally doesn\u2019t lead rounds, but when they do, they will invest $500k to $2M. When they lead, they join the board as a director or observer. They happily invest in companies anywhere in the world but have a preference for standard jurisdictions and structures (e.g., Delaware C Corps, Hong Kong or Singapore Limited companies, SAFEs, etc.) They don\u2019t invest in markets they don\u2019t understand well or markets that require deep specialization to evaluate. While they do invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain companies, they very rarely invest in crypto-tokens without an equity component. They don\u2019t invest via SPVs, by mandate, they don\u2019t invest in mainland China, and they don\u2019t invest in uncapped notes and SAFEs. Sophie is a three-time fund manager with a top-performing record by IRR. She was MD at Rothenberg and VP at Draper Dragon before setting off on her own to found Oyster Ventures as a solo GP in 2017. Prior, she co-founded and sold a VFX startup to a large media company in 2015. Before that, she ran M&A strategy and started her career by launching joint ventures for U.S-Asia cross-border businesses in the TMT sector. Sophie discusses her investment thesis, advises entrepreneurs and investors and describes some of the challenges they face. You can visit Oyster Ventures at , via LinkedIn at , and via Twitter at . \xa0 Sophie can be contacted via email at , and via LinkedIn at .\xa0 _________________________________________________________________________ For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: \xa0\xa0 Check out our other podcasts here: \xa0 For Investors check out: \xa0 For Startups check out: \xa0 For eGuides check out: \xa0 For upcoming Events, check out \xa0\xa0 For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group\xa0\xa0\xa0 Please , share, and leave a review. Music courtesy of .