Member Spotlight: Snatched Ventures
For this deep dive, we spoke to Kevin Colas, Managing General Partner of Snatched Ventures.
Tell us about your firm. What makes it different?
Snatched Ventures, is an institutional early venture deeptech firm/fund targeting $100M to back the next era of sustainable operational transformation and efficiency at the intersection of eight science-based technologies solving complex engineering challenges with large environmental, economical and social impact, but ready-to-deploy and scale now, not in ten years (AI/ML, materials science, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, optics, electronics, robotics and blockchain) in six thematics we know, love, invested in successfully with a top decile performance since 2020 bringing value for investors, founders and strategics alike: transportation & logistics, energy & water, food & agriculture, fashion & beauty, precision medicine & aging and retail & e-commerce. And this under strict underwriting financial filters (4Fs of minimum early revenue $1M, gross margin 50%, cash conversion score 0.25x, and revenue-to-capex ratio 3x) to lead series A and opportunistically series Seed and B when minimum ownership and underwriting 4Fs are met. Companies that combine environmental and financial sustainability and scalability to thrive across economic cycles.
What defines your portfolio?
Snatched Ventures builds on our prior investment platforms: Kevin founded the Empire Angel Collective (EAC) – de facto Fund I – which since 2020 has deployed ~$10M across 40+ startups with strong DeepTech exposure. In parallel, while investing with Kevin, co-GP Alessandro, led Deeptech investments at Hyundai’s CVC arm. Together, their track records underpin Snatched’s top-decile metrics: 4.4x TVPI, 151% DPI, 1.6% loss ratio across 24 transactions, 22 companies, and 5 unicorns, 1 exit by IPO exit, and 3 by acquisitions including one all cash.
And EAC is now deploying new investments by vintage (4 in 2024) exclusively in DeepTech with advisors of Snatched already committed to invest in Fund II Snatched Ventures Alpha, LP representing warehouse investments to roll into it.
Tell us about the current VC landscape in your geography/region.
California is the historical heart of venture investment but venture needs to return to its initial real DNA. This DNA is financing innovation with an hand-on approach in supporting portfolio companies concretely with not only money but bringing clients, strategic partners, vetted vendors and professional services to help along, new hires among their networks, support strategy definition, refinement, and planning, GTM rationale and execution, and financial discipline.
Today, after a terrible global pandemic never to forget and several years of excessive valuations of the real 2019-2022 bubble in the venture asset class, the venture industry derives away from its roots and DNA towards a competition of the bigger checks driven by considerable fundraises of marquee funds over the past 5-10 years, concentrating dry powder in the hands of a few firms mighty by their size but in general not much anymore by the performance if their funds.
Deep due diligence is essential to make sure to invest public money properly. It’s a fiduciary duty, whatever the cycle, fear of missing out and related pace of deal closing characterizing the timing of investments. Investment managers should invest as if their AUM would be their own money. VC managers role is to provide ignition capital and support companies along their hard times and growth phase until an exit opportunity, but fundraising and venture money should be sustaining companies in reaching executing on a path to profitability, not becoming a condition of startups survival. VCS should push startups to build businesses sustaining themselves and becoming quickly profitable, able to fly with their own wings. Not to gobble large amounts of public venture and growth money until IPOs or proper M&A exits satisfying early and late investors alike.
What are the benefits of being an NVCA member?
Get to know more investor peers across the categories for deal syndication and leading/co-leading for Snatched, portfolio support, exit opportunities and thematic development. Get involved in the activism and policy advisory groups / think tanks of NVCA to at my humble scale try to influence positive change and policies evolutions for venture and deeptech.
What’s ahead for your firm?
Fundraising $100M with an initial close at $30M with a value added balance of financial, corporate, family office strategic LPs I am excited to deeply collaborate with, invest for and offering co-investing opportunities to. And deploying wisely doing deep dives to source pro-actively vs reactively sourcing with deal flow exchanges, conferences or accelerators and incubators. To get the best early stage companies at the intersection of our 8 deep technologies in our 6 thematics I already mapped investment spaces for. And fund teams and businesses having positive environmental and financial sustainability to produce outsized returns for LPs, founders, strategics, GPs and staff of Snatched. Ultimately to build a lasting platform of thematic deeptech funds changing the way we live and business use innovation to boost their efficiency while transitioning faster towards really sustainable models for the planet and people. For our kids, for us and to avoid having to one day flee on Mars with Mr. Musk because we ended up destroying this amazingly beautiful and well designed blue planet.
