What We Do
At Waltair Ventures, we like large problems that are amenable to technology solutions. We seek out proprietary and protected technological advances, business model innovations, unique partnerships and top-notch teams.
Broadly, WV offers one or more of the below.
Significant technology or business model innovation
Unusual technology approaches, ventures into new markets or contrarian approaches to existing markets.
Ideas with significant upside or a significantly better mousetrap
Idea picked at Waltair Ventures are high-impact innovations beyond the realm of normal expectations. They are known to be characterized by rarity, extreme impact and retrospective predictability. High-impact investments can change the dynamics of large markets.
Large markets enabled by the innovation at hand
We love breaking monopolies. Disrupting a large existing market rather than finding a billion dollar market with a credible path to grow.
Short innovation cycles
Startups by nature take on more risk than larger, established competitors. However, the nature of startups also adds significant difficulty to getting large, capital-intensive projects up and running. Instead, we look for rapid innovation cycles so proof points and results are available quickly. We also break our own rules sometimes and invest in a project with long innovation cycles because other factors were compelling.
Risks
Every plan has risks, and we both understand and cherish risk. But we prefer technology risk to market risk, and we prefer to remove technology and business risks up front. Clearly identified and understood risks, along with a cogent plan for removing those risks for the least amount of money, is an important criteria for evaluating ventures. It is more advantageous to all parties to focus on the key risks early.
If you have a compelling technology-based story or are exceptionally accomplished, we are willing to listen. We are looking forward to build small companies and achieve great results. We will help you redefine your plan to meet these criteria if the technology breakthroughs are significant.
