Blog Author: Alain Nicod, Managing Partner, Technology

Last week I ran out of new books to read.  I went into my bookshelves and picked Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which I read more than 10 years ago. The message is that great achievers are not only gifted and hard workers, but live in an environment that fosters their natural talents.

My 3 children were born 89, 92, and 97.  Most of their friends are within that generation.  The same applies to the founders of early stage companies we are financing at VI Partners.

Do they benefit from extraordinary circumstances which will allow them to blossom if they chose to become entrepreneurs?  I think so.

We have been talking and working on Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence for a decade.  As usual, many new technologies start by being solutions looking for problems.  It takes some time for them (and their users) to mature and develop sensible services.

We seem to be there now.  We are seeing more and more start-ups that are making good use of these technologies and offering services only possible with massive usage and interpretation of data points.  We will be announcing a series of great investments in that area in the coming weeks.  We already have companies like Acodis and Altoida whose business models are based on massive interpretation of data.

An abundance of capital certainly has a compounding effect.  Great entrepreneurs land massive rounds of financing.  My only worry is that valuations are going through the roof.  A correction might prove painful.