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cessful relationships. Once you take money, you have a deep dives into different facets of technology informed
partner who will expect timely updates with real numbers Aisera's complex, AI-driven design. The platform's basic
and data, he stated. "This will be a real partnership, so language skills and adaptive learning help it recognize,
get to know your investors and vice versa," Cohen said. automate and resolve service issues. Its ability to solve
"Don't hide important data points and get to learn how high-demand requests makes it scalable, he added.
they operated with past investments. Do you think about
growth and the opportunity similarly? You'd be surprised "When I ask a specific question, the system answers ac-
how often there is a strategy mismatch post-close." curately in a manner that customers appreciate," Sudhakar
said. "Our AI constantly learns from our growing base of
Gordon agreed, stating, "When you bring in an equity 12 million users and currently answers between 60 to 70
partner, you have to mentally prepare, especially if you're percent of questions without humans. I measure success
not used to working with others. Make sure the benefits of by asking, 'how many questions have you resolved this
the partner's expertise and guidance outweigh any down- week?' Scale means nothing without accuracy."
side of shared decision-making."
Sudhakar acknowledged that being an entrepreneur isn't
Gordon further noted that investor partnerships don't fall easy and isn't for everyone. He characterized it as a wind-
into one bucket. Portfolio managers and minority partners ing trajectory with many sleepless nights and bumps
have inherently different structures. A quasi-strategic or along the way that also requires you to invest in the long
private equity partner takes a direct interest in your com- haul without knowing where it will end. "Repeat investors
pany, unlike a strategic, privately-held partner that makes are like customers who keep coming back to buy products
you part of an investment portfolio. from you," he said. "I am fortunate to have customers and
early adopters who are willing to take this journey with
To have and to hold me."
Aisera and Norwest Venture Partners are a good example Place your bets
of a happy investor/fintech marriage. The partners com-
pleted a $20 million Series B funding round in February The fintech tsunami, like early ecommerce, is disrupting
2020, with additional participation from Menlo Ventures, the commerce ecosystem, Gordon stated. "We're seeing
True Ventures, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Ram historically aggressive multiples with pure play technol-
Shriram and Maynard Webb Investments. Aisera plans to ogy companies, many of which have no profitability or are
use the capital to grow and deploy its advanced AI plat- even losing money," he said. "This could be the start of a
form for IT, HR and customer service environments. The new era, similar to the birth of the internet in the early
partners issued a press release filled with customer en- 2000s."
dorsements, celebrating Aisera's 350 percent year-over-
year growth rate. Gordon sees the new era as a seller's market for the tradi-
tional side of payments, suggesting pure play technology
"Every wave of IT innovation creates a new set of chal- companies are still in "early days." It's unclear if GAAP
lenges," said Matt Howard, general partner at Norwest [generally accepted accounting principles] will apply to
Venture Partners, in a statement. "Aisera addresses those companies like Amazon, Google, Apple and Tesla, he stat-
challenges, as the founders are seasoned entrepreneurs ed.
with deep expertise in service desk, security, and cus-
tomer service cloud solutions. We are thrilled to be part of "Consider the growth rate of cloud-based solutions that
their new journey." are locking up so many customers," Gordon said. "If you
use a solution like Quicken or QuickBooks, you're prob-
Muddu Sudhakar, Aisera CEO and co-founder and self- ably don't care about saving $2 a month for whatever they
described serial entrepreneur, thanked employees and in- charge online, because it's a convenience. Once they have
vestment partners for helping the company transform the you in their system, you're probably there for the long
enterprise service experience. And he thanked the market journey and I think investors are placing bets on that."
for "bringing the tsunami."
Cohen agreed that the financial technology environment
"It's never one person," Sudhakar said. "My team of 100 is ripe for speculation. "Investors understand the odds and
and repeat investors understand my strengths and give recognize that not every company in their portfolio will
me the support to keep on innovating. Matt Howard has make it," he said. "The entrepreneur may have one bet but
been with me for almost 20 years." the fund or investor has many and can't bring the whole
fund down on one bet."
Technology journey
Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and managing
Sudhakar previously launched Kazeon, acquired by EMC director at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and content
in 2009; Cetas, acquired by VMware in 2012; and Caspida, development specialist. She can be reached at dale@dsldirectllc.com
acquired by Splunk in 2015. As he reflected on his tech- and on Twitter at @DSLdirect.
nology journey, Sudhakar said prior product launches and
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