23 Sep 2022
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: Real Talk from XR Investors
AWE USA 2022
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the most engaging content from AWE’s catalog of conference sessions. With an extensive library from AWE USA 2022, there's still plenty to dive into.
This week, we focus on a good-old AMA (ask me anything) with XR investors. What are they doing, thinking and investing in these days? Which ways do the XR winds blow? They give their honest take.Speakers:
Moritz Baier-Lentz - Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures
Kristina Serafim - Managing Director at Verizon Ventures
Gregory Castle - Managing Partner at Anorak Ventures
Dave Haynes - Partner at FOV Ventures
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library on awe.live and AWE’s YouTube Channel.
– Investors come in all shapes & sizes including sector focus, stage, deal size, and goals.
– The latter is subdivided between strategic/corporate investors and financial investors.
– A mix of these perspectives is always valuable for a well-rounded analysis.
– For example,Verizon Ventures' investments align with corporate goals (e.g., 5G-related).
– Investors also have a mix of B2C and B2B focus – both holding opportunity today.
– B2C represents larger markets... but B2B has greater near-term adoption and demand.
– There's also opportunity in the best of both worlds, otherwise known as B2B2C.
– This involves software for developers to build XR experiences for their customers.
– As for what investors don't like, avoid using buzzwords like metaverse in an empty way.
– Though XR and metaverse are new & hot, investor fundamentals still rule the day.
– That includes market size, tech differentiation, founding team, and market timing.
– It's also important to balance ambitious long-term goals and near-term sustainability.
– In other words, XR isn't mature, so how will you survive until that day arrives?
– Investors care less about squabbling about how many $billions a given market will be.
– Instead, be ready to discuss your current sales pipeline and who will pay you today.
– Good examples are Tesla and SpaceX... big ambitious goals but also revenue today.
– Don't just throw out big market sizes and say "if we can just capture 1% of that..."
– That reductionist view ignores bottom-up execution and investors see right through it.
For more color from panel, check out the full session below...
Want more XR insights and multimedia? ARtillery Intelligence offers an indexed and searchable library of XR intelligence known as ARtillery Pro. See more here.
Kristina Serafim - Managing Director at Verizon Ventures
Gregory Castle - Managing Partner at Anorak Ventures
Dave Haynes - Partner at FOV Ventures
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library on awe.live and AWE’s YouTube Channel.
– Investors come in all shapes & sizes including sector focus, stage, deal size, and goals.
– The latter is subdivided between strategic/corporate investors and financial investors.
– A mix of these perspectives is always valuable for a well-rounded analysis.
– For example,Verizon Ventures' investments align with corporate goals (e.g., 5G-related).
– Investors also have a mix of B2C and B2B focus – both holding opportunity today.
– B2C represents larger markets... but B2B has greater near-term adoption and demand.
– There's also opportunity in the best of both worlds, otherwise known as B2B2C.
– This involves software for developers to build XR experiences for their customers.
– As for what investors don't like, avoid using buzzwords like metaverse in an empty way.
– Though XR and metaverse are new & hot, investor fundamentals still rule the day.
– That includes market size, tech differentiation, founding team, and market timing.
– It's also important to balance ambitious long-term goals and near-term sustainability.
– In other words, XR isn't mature, so how will you survive until that day arrives?
– Investors care less about squabbling about how many $billions a given market will be.
– Instead, be ready to discuss your current sales pipeline and who will pay you today.
– Good examples are Tesla and SpaceX... big ambitious goals but also revenue today.
– Don't just throw out big market sizes and say "if we can just capture 1% of that..."
– That reductionist view ignores bottom-up execution and investors see right through it.
For more color from panel, check out the full session below...
Want more XR insights and multimedia? ARtillery Intelligence offers an indexed and searchable library of XR intelligence known as ARtillery Pro. See more here. 
