Hi!, we are Las Olas Venture Capital (a.k.a. LOVC). This repository contains information on how we operate in machine-readable format, which we'll update over time. We intend to continuously and openly share information to provide interested founders and investors with full visibility on our approach.

About us
Las Olas means "the waves" in Spanish. We're merchants of progress seeking to create waves of change. As futurist venture capitalists we want to transform existing markets and create new ones by backing smart people who are building the future in non-obvious places.

What we believe in
Everything we do is based on the belief that greatness can come from anywhere. We believe that regardless of background or location when determined smart people make it their mission to solve a hard problem and change the world they often do.

What we do
Our mission is to find outstanding entrepreneurs in non-obvious places and maximize their impact by connecting them to networks of capital, talent, and customers in well-established startup ecosystems.

Who we invest in
We invest in extraordinary people who are building the future. This means people building technology that can redefine existing industries and create new ones. We call these people superheroes and transformers. They typically have spent years gaining asymmetrical insight in a particular industry and the superpowers for building products that create ascending user networks, which as a result drive transformational value.

What we invest in
We rarely invest in just ideas, and we prefer to see product demos vs. just pitch decks. We get really excited when we’re shown actual metrics that validate an original vision. We focus almost all of our efforts looking for companies that have reached early product market fit, which we can help get to the next level. In VC vernacular this means we mainly invest in early revenue companies raising their late Seed and/or Series A round.

We invest in areas we understand and have a strong formed opinion about their future. We’re not dogmatic about any particular market or trend, but instead we invest in technological developments we can effect and yield outstanding outcomes for our investors and founders.

Our backgrounds intersect several verticals and markets in which we’ve invested as well as built and sold several startups for over $1Bn. By design our capabilities are dramatically augmented by our limited partners, advisors, and co-investors, which we carefully select. We like to be helpful in building businesses in North and Latin America in the following sectors:

● Enterprise software
● Tech-enabled business services
● Edtech
● Fintech
● Payments

While we don't see these as the only areas we can invest in they are ones we know really well.

Where we invest
We’re based in Miami with networks in New York, Boston and the San Francisco bay area. When we lead an investment we like to be close to founders to add the most value. If we’re investing alongside people we trust we don't care as much about location as long as we can add value and influence the outcome from afar.

Investment themes
Our investment themes are the result of our internal research and data analysis. They reflect our view on the emerging technologies and business architectures that we think will have a fundamental impact on how the world runs. Given the inherent evolving nature of technology, our themes will likely tend to morph, but not always in the same direction conventional wisdom would suggest. We will keep track of how our themes change over time and will mine that data looking for insights. We plan to share any learning we find valuable as well as answer any questions we get. We’re currently very intrigued by entrepreneurs building companies within these themes:

● Machine intelligence

○ Artificial intelligence applied to solving a very specific problem for a clearly defined market.
○ Smart machine ecosystems, which can increase productivity and scalability by orders of magnitude.
○ Connected devices and software that create new data sets, which enable ascending and unfair advantages.

○	Technology that amplifies the value of the Internet and software.
○	Platforms connecting people and services that enable faster innovation.
○	Applications that make the Internet more secure and protect people’s data.

○	Industry focused Saas platforms that transform how companies create value for customers.
○	New solutions to old industry problems that require a high degree of process and manual coordination.
○	Individual worker empowerment via mobility and on-demand insight tools and services.

Our investment approach
We’re entrepreneurs ourselves, so we like to be involved and invest to drive transformational change. This doesn't mean we need control or get in the way as we understand that founders require flexibility to execute on their vision.

We do our homework and spend serious time understanding every investment opportunity down to its first principles. This means the problem being solved, the team, the vision, the product, the market, the customers, among many other things, to then clearly define where we can add value.

We always stick to our fundamental beliefs even if those are contrarian to conventional thinking and seem irrational to others. However, we listen very carefully to people we trust and consider leaders in their respective domains.

We tend to be fast to make investment decisions, but we don’t rush to make investments. Sometimes we take extra time to come to a conclusion, and when that happens it is typically because we’re deeply interested. We are always straight forward and never waste anyone's time.

We do deep due diligence and make sure that we’re partnering with great entrepreneurs with a great vision. We believe their time is best spent building their companies, so we try to make it a manageable process for them. If we end up not investing we’re very explicit on the reasons for our decision and try to be as helpful as possible.

How we make investment decisions
Our investment committee makes our investment decisions. We are very practical and are always finding better ways to run an agile investment review and approval process. While our investors wholeheartedly trust our judgment we find that this process provides good balance in our decision-making.

Any general partner can present investment opportunities to the committee, and we do not require consensus from the other partners for doing so. Nevertheless, in almost all cases the partners seek out feedback from the other partners, advisors, and associates, before presenting investments for approval. In all cases all of our general partners will have met the entrepreneurs before presenting an investment to the investment committee.

We have scheduled weekly meetings to discuss our investment pipeline and portfolio companies. In between meetings we have very fluid communication with each other as frequently as needed. It is not rare for us to meet on any given Sunday very late at night.

We only expect to invest in about 1% of the companies that we look at. This is not perfect science, but based on our experience this is how we anticipate it will work:

1) We will source opportunities through our networks, inbound generated leads, and proactive outreach. The first thing we like to see is a product demo or pitch deck that clearly articulates the innovation and investment opportunity.
2) Roughly 50% of the pitch decks we review will turn into a first meeting or call with one of our partners.
3) About 10% of the opportunities we look at will convert into a full diligence process, and we expect to make investment offers to 1% of them.

Our typical investment terms
Every venture is different so we don’t have a set of rules regarding investment terms. We just ask entrepreneurs for fair valuations commensurate with the level of value we’re adding and reasonable downside protection on our investment. In general terms this means a significant enough equity stake for us to be motivated, at least a 1x liquidation preference, and the right to approve the issuance of any securities that would get preference over our investment.

Naturally, our focus is opportunities where can create maximum impact for the entrepreneurs we back and our investors. And given the asymmetrical distribution of returns in venture any of our investments must have the potential to return the total value of our fund. Therefore we find ourselves dedicating most of our energy and resources to helping the portfolio companies in which our ownership level and ability to help are meaningful.

While we’re happy to lead a round if it's the right thing for us to do, we’re not constrained to having to do it in order to invest. We categorize our investments in four buckets based on our role and the investment stage:

1) Lead: When we lead our investment can range between $500,000 to $1,500,000 per opportunity. We tend to bring in co-investors alongside us, especially those who can add significant value. Our co-investors are other VCs, angels, domain experts, and advisors we think have some kind of superpower to help us maximize the potential of the founders we’re backing.
2) Syndicate: When we’re not leading we co-invest alongside other VCs and people that we trust in opportunities that are synergistic to our strategy. We do this as a way to expand our networks and get exposure to key markets, primarily San Francisco and New York. While we’re flexible, our investments in this category tend to be less than $500,000 per opportunity.
3) Kernel: these are small investments we make in product stage companies that while being early we have strong conviction about the founders’ transformational superpowers. These investments rarely exceed $100,000 and our expectation is that by investing early we’ll be in the best position to help lead subsequent capital rounds.
4) Build: while our focus is on ventures with product market fit we’re still entrepreneurs after all. Hence we pay close attention when we see a market void and the opportunity to partner with super smart people to launch a new company. In this case we not only provide capital but a full platform for these entrepreneurs to thrive. The value proposition to our investors is getting an outsized equity participation as early investors, while we closely oversee the venture building process and de-risk the investment. We are very selective on these type of investments and don't anticipate doing many.

Post investment
Everyone at our firm has been a founder so we understand the troubles and tribulations founders go through. Our job is to help them overcome those challenges and build valuable-enduring companies. Once we make an investment we’re fully vested in their success and we’ll pull in all of our resources to make it happen. We are typically good at helping in these areas:

● Raising capital to support growth while balancing equity preservation.
● Optimizing go-to-market strategies and putting them into action.
● Introducing customers, partners, and others who can help drive growth.
● Introducing domain experts who can help answer hard questions.
● Attracting and recruiting key talent.

As much as we seek to help we also seek to learn from our founders. We don't pretend to have all the answers, but can surely help answer them. We have a “zero ego” policy, and we’re all about learning from our collective experience and creating tangible value.

We believe in making everyone fully accountable for their decisions, but we all support each other’s decisions once made. We work as a team to learn from each other, and as as result the founders we back get the very best from us. They have access to anyone at our firm, at any time, regardless of who led their investment.

When things go wrong
We like to think we’re good partners in good times and great partners in bad times. We’re optimists but we realize things will go wrong and some of our portfolio companies will get in trouble. What matters to us is getting in trouble alongside the right people. That is why we expect to look at a high number of opportunities to select just a few that we will partner with.

Final words and how to contact us
If you read all the way to this section we thank your interest! Our goal is to always provide value, do no harm, and enjoy the ride. So hopefully this document was valuable to you in some way, or at least provided a clear view of who we are and who we are not. We acknowledge some founders may not agree with our approach, and that is ok, we sincerely wish them well. To those building the future who think we can help please reach out, we’re at your service.

LOVC
[email protected]

PS: thanks to our friends at Bloomberg Beta for being a source of inspiration for using GitHub as the platform for sharing this data. While we will provide updates here, we will maintain our website at www.lasolasvc.com