Welcome to Startup Grind's Founder Series, where our VP of Sales + Startups Alex Gordon-Furse educates our global community on highly relevant early-stage topics through interviews with founders of top startups from our Startup Program.

In this episode, Alex interviews Sce Pike, founder and CEO of IOTAS, a Portland, Oregon-based developer of a premier smart home technology platform that delivers a fully-connected, smart home experience for residents and property managers that integrates IoT technology directly into multifamily units. IOTAS is now in over 45 different markets in US and Canada and is managing over 100,000 IoT devices in multiple properties to mitigate risk and damage, reduce labor costs, and attract and retain residents with Smart Home features.

The subject of this interview is 'The Pros and Cons of Raising Money from CVCs'. Expect to learn a lot from Sce's extensive experience raising money from, selling to and working with corporates, including how to build & manage relationships with them and why CVCs might actually be savvier investors with better connections than traditional VCs.

0:00 Start
0:10 Quick intro from Alex Gordon-Furse, VP of Sales & Startups at Startup Grind HQ
0:55 Meet Sce Pike, founder and CEO of IOTAS
2:32 What is the main problem you are solving?
4:13 Why is now the best time for IOTAS to be solving it?
6:18 Who are your main competitors and why are you better?
8:27 At what point was it that you realised the important thing was to focus on building great software to empower this market?
12:27 As a second-time founder (Citizen, Inc), were you able to mainly use personal funds before you raised your pre-seed/Angel round?
13:56 Citizen has since been acquired by Ernst & Young, but what stage was it at when you left?
14:47 You raised an initial SAFE round in 2015 - who was involved in that and how did you find them?
17:07 What was your story for the seed round in mid-2017?
20:20 Had you actively sought out discussions with CVCs or was this more of a reactive move?
23:24 Recommendation for people who don't have the right platform available to get in touch with the corporates they want to work with
28:38 How was the process of closing the Series A round different from previous rounds?
31:00 How have you worked with your investors?
33:32 What are challenges you've had with investors?
35:51 What were signals or red flags when working with or selecting CVCs?
38:52 What tips do you have that are industry-agnostic to help others get the most out of their CVC relationships?
40:23 How would it look if you brought out another corporate? How would you think about that decision and work with the other CVCs to pull that round together?
42:20 Have you engaged with other founders who have had different experiences?
45:14 If there were one single thing you’d like our listeners to take from today’s story, what would it be?

Watch more of the Founder Series:    • Founder Series  

Alex's twitter - @giomate
Sce's twitter - @spike75

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