Day 4! Everybody is getting used to living in San Francisco J In the morning we take the bus to the Caltrain Station and traveled down to Mountain View.

The reason for our trip to Mountain View: a meeting with the amazing Kaushal Chokshi! Kaushal is the Founder and the President of Scaale Inc.  and together with his team, he welcomed us at his Mountain View office. They prepared a very interesting workshop for us.

First, Kaushal talked how he started as an entrepreneur in India, but he wanted more. He moved to London, but he wasn’t successful there at first, but he learned a lot from this experience! By 2006, he had 7 successful companies, he sold them and founded Scaale Group.

Kaushal shared a lot of advice and tips about the international investment market. He says that, not every company has to aim for the global market, but you always have to know what is going on globally. So you can stay on top of your game. He also gave some advice on different options to come to North America as a startup and what the challenges are.

After Kaushal, we also had the honor to talk to his colleague, Marta Emerson, Vice President of the Scaale Group. She talked about the Cross Border Angels group who has 150 members all over the world and would love to expand to 500 investors by the end of this year.

Marta explained that most investors invest close to home; it’s easier to follow up, and then can mentor the teams better and it’s a market they know. So why do investors choose for international companies? First of all, they might want to expand their local portfolio. Second, they might want to invest in companies based in high-growth countries with a large market, so that they can have a bigger return on investment.  And third, maybe they just love the fun life-style, a lot of travelling and meeting people from all over the world. Kaushal definitely enjoys this life-style!

So although it is not easy, you can attract global investment. Before you reach out to them make sure that you plan your growth, build a great story and justify this story with numbers.

 

Kaushal concluded that planning milestones and clear-cut thinking is very important!

At the end Kaushal and Marta challenged the teams by asking for 3 reasons why global investors should invest in them. The teams did their best to answer and they shared their thoughts and advice.

It was an amazing workshop. We want to thank Kaushal, Marta and Manon taking the time to meet us and teach us a lot about global investment.

After this meeting we rushed back to the city. We needed to prepare for our Demo Day in Runway.

More than 100 people joined us for this event. Six Happy Farm teams pitched against 500 Startup teams! We had UDS, Concept Inbox, Melophone, Dressboom, PublicFast and LendingStars on the Happy Farm side and Shippo, Ohn Connect, VenueSpot, Pigon, Doorman and Soundbetter on the 500 Startup side.

Mike Sigal and Marvin Liao supported the teams and in the end it was too hard to decide a winner so the startups drunk the price (a bottle for Cognac from Crimea) together!

 

After the event there was a lot of time for networking.

A great end to the first week of our trip! We are all looking forward to more exciting meetings and visits next week!