Why I joined WestWave Capital
Aug 20, 2019
Startups can be fun and rewarding but very challenging. I discovered this first-hand at the company that I started in 2010, CliQr, along with my co-founder Tenry Fu. The formative years at CliQr were some of the most creative and rewarding years of my life but also some of the most challenging. Being a technical founder, I had to go through a steep learning curve, such as understanding the complexities of enterprise sales cycles, go-to-market models, raising venture capital and most importantly, how to grow as a leader.
I enjoy working with creative people immensely. I had the opportunity to do that with the team at CliQr. I want to be able to relive the creative energy of those days, not once but several times over, and what better way to do that than becoming a venture investor in early stage startups! Not only that, I hope that I can take my experience and learnings from CliQr to enable founders in overcoming the kind of challenges I faced and help them accelerate their journey. If I can help these founders become successful, I would consider my mission as a venture investor accomplished.
And WestWave Capital is the best firm for me to achieve this goal. I was fortunate that I had mentors like Warren Weiss, who invested in CliQr early on to guide me in my journey. I am now privileged to partner with Bunny (as most people know Warren) and the WestWave Capital team, in our mission to invest in exceptional early stage companies built by daring founders. In addition to his venture career, Bunny has been a startup CEO several times and completely empathizes with what it takes to run a startup. It is no secret in the valley that the best venture investors are ones that have been founders and/or operational executives before.
The venture model is also changing rapidly which makes the role of firms like WestWave Capital in the startup ecosystem extremely important. What used to be early stage Series A investors are behaving more and more like late stage investors with the bar for what qualifies as a Series A investment being raised significantly. On the other hand, angel investments alone cannot fulfill the financial needs required to hit such milestones. This is where we at WestWave Capital come in, our sweet spot being pre-seed and seed round companies.
At WestWave Capital, we therefore sincerely believe that we are uniquely positioned to use our joint experiences to guide enterprise startups from seed to successful exits. And I am exhilarated at the prospect of playing a part in the lives of what could be some of the most important companies of the future.
Visit www.westwavecapital.com to find out more.
