Q&A WITH DEREK WATSON, FOUNDER OF N2 TECHNOLOGY

Q AHow has Covid-19 affected the start-up community? Covid-19 created a massive problem. And what happened with the pandemic was that essentially everybody had to go and look at their portfolio companies. Every single bit of history, every single investment that they had received before that, you could literally throw it away. Every single entrepreneur either failed or their business took off, or they were busy pivoting. This meant that the data that you had out as an investor was kind of irrelevant.

How do you match start-ups and venture capitalists?

They have all given their live investment preferences, so when you are matched, you know it is going to someone that has actually asked for it. So, it is this reverse solicitation. Actually, this is what I am looking to buy. It is what I am looking to invest in, right now, today, and not what I was doing a year ago.

Do you make any profit from possible deals that the startups and venture capitalists enter into?

We cannot sell and we do not sell your product to investors. What we do is simply connect you in a nanosecond. Our success is not based on how many people have raised [funds] on the platform. That would be similar to asking Tinder how many people [who met through their platform] ended up married.

Do any venture capitalists have a stake in your company?

No. That is one thing we wanted to be sure of. First point was how do we arrange access for start-ups very quickly and that was by taking fees off the table that made it transparent.

How are South Asian venture capital companies different from the ones in the Middle East?

In India, in particular, what you see is that they have not labelled themselves as venture capital companies. There are several family offices there that understand business from the roots up and they make a huge difference.