827: VC: $140m FinTech, InsurTech Fund on How They Invest
Andrew Pitz. He\u2019s an investment manager at Transamerica Ventures, the global venture capital fund of Transamerica that specializes in investing in insurtech, fintech and enterprise software companies. There, he has led the firm's investments in PolicyGenius, Digital Currency Group, Everplans, SmartAsset and Hixme.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \u2013 Venture Deals
- What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Jonah Goodhart and Vinny Lingham
- Favorite online tool? \u2014 Fortunes Term Sheet, Mattermark Daily, Crunchbase Daily
- How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 5.5
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 Andrew wished he had understood domain names and technology
\xa0
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:42 \u2013 Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
- 02:16 \u2013 Transamerica and AEGON are global investment and insurance firms
- 02:56 \u2013 $140K is the fund size they\u2019re currently working with
- 03:04 \u2013 The fund was already set-up from the beginning
- 03:25 \u2013 Their first fund was in 2014, in the European market
- 03:47 \u2013 They had 17 unique companies with 23 investments
- 04:25 \u2013 They don\u2019t share company information with their parent company
- 04:39 \u2013 They don\u2019t want the corporate parent to be involved in the business
- 05:25 \u2013 They haven\u2019t had any exits yet
- 05:39 \u2013 Andrews shares fund-to-fund deals with FinTech Collective
- 06:38 \u2013 They put in a $2M check and the total funds raised were $75K to $100K
- 06:55 \u2013 They put in $1M to another fund to fund the deal they had
- 07:00 \u2013 Their first fund was around $10M
- 07:28 \u2013 FinTech Collective is based in New York
- 07:38 \u2013 Some of the fintech companies they\u2019ve invested in are Art Invest, MoneyLion, 401k and Elephant Tech
- 08:24 \u2013 Andrew gets his salary and bonuses from the deals
- 08:50 \u2013 Andrew shares how their boss missed deals that are worth billions now
- 09:30 \u2013 There are instances where they need to let some deals pass
- 10:00 \u2013 In a week, they\u2019re receiving hundreds of newsletters from different companies (around 5000 in a year)
- 10:13 \u2013 Andrew studies 500 deals and meets with around 250
- 11:10 \u2013 Initial check size was $1-5M as a follow on investor
- 11:34 \u2013 Andrew chooses PolicyGenius and Hixme
- 12:40 \u2013 Andrew thinks PolicyGenius will have a good exit
- 13:07 \u2013 H2O as an open source
- 13:33 \u2013 Red Hat pioneered the open source
- 14:36 \u2013 The goal is to invest in direct technology and create partnerships
- 14:54 \u2013 Andrew shares the kind of partnerships they\u2019re looking for
- 15:14 \u2013 Andrew wanted to do work in Asia because of the many opportunities
- 17:05 \u2013 The Famous Five
\xa0
3 Key Points:
- There are thousands of companies created daily\u2014you have to research and choose which one to invest into wisely.
- Forming partnerships is MORE important than monetary gain.
- Technology can take you anywhere.
\xa0
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero \u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- The Top Inbox \u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio \u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar \u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\u2019re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives