With approximately 500 attendees, uber-founder and CEO Navroop Sahdev and VP Heidi Cuppari conducted the outstanding The Digital Economist Roundtable at the World Economic Forum 2020 at Davos. Great North Labs was invited to the event to discuss the role of venture capital in economic impact, and I shared the fund’s experience and strategy.
The strategy starts with Fund I. The plan for Fund I is to invest in roughly 30 companies. We anticipate these portfolio companies will raise a total of ~$200M from co-investments as they grow. With that total and, for example, a 500% return over the life of the fund, we would build ~$1B in market value. By motivating LPs with successful exits to reinvest in subsequent funds, this builds a cycle of growth.
In the course of raising and investing Fund I, we gained valuable experience in developing relationships and aligning incentives. Great North Labs built an ecosystem of 200+ investment partners, 60+ advisors, and developed relationships with universities, regional economic development organizations, government, and innovation catalyst organizations such as Singularity University. To develop local talent, we founded a startup school that educated 200+ on startup entrepreneurship, regularly provide office hours and mentorship to entrepreneurs, and worked with, trained, and hired college students.
Regional entrepreneurs prefer to raise money and grow in their communities, and investors prefer to invest within the region where regional VCs are available. By leveraging our foundational work from Fund I, our second fund could bring 2-3X the co-investment dollars and returns. Over 3-4 decades, this is how investors built fortunes and turned the farm economy of Silicon Valley into one of the world’s most prosperous regions.
While continuing to lead and co-invest in Seed Stage through B Rounds in Fund I, we will raise Fund II. This will create investing continuity and maintain dealflow, synchronicity with the local ecosystem, and co-investor relations. By creating a cycle of growth and re-investment, our goal is to create prosperity in a similar fashion as Silicon Valley, here in the Upper Midwest.
