(Sweden)  Joar Lindh: VenturePort is an all-in-one investor relations platform with a founders-first approach

A QUICK INTRODUCTION ABOUT WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES/YOUR VALUES/MISSION.

 
VenturePort is an all-in-one investor relations platform with a founders-first approach. We strive to make it as easy as possible for founders to keep their investors in the loop – resulting in raising more money at higher valuations. We do this by utilizing OpenAI and integrations allowing you to consolidate all data about your company in one place that allows you to create and distribute updates more efficiently.

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF?

Started out my career at the Swedish Trade and Invest Council in Russia helping Swedish companies establish themselves on the Russian market. Thereafter, I got recruited to a ride hailing startup called Mondo Ride where I was asked to launch the app on a number of markets in Africa. Ran Mondo Ride as second in command for 3.5 years where we made launches in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Mondo Ride didn’t make it to series A, due to difficulty in raising funds for East Africa at the time and I started my own consulting business called Oium that I ran for 2-3 years. I realized that my startup bug was there to stay and joined VenturePort last year as CEO and happy to be back in the early stage trenches again.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME A YEAR OR TWO, WHAT PIECE OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF?

 
Just because you have stayed on a certain path for a long time does not mean that it is the right path. Always re-evaluate your goals, ambitions and objectives since you are constantly changing and so is the world around you.

WHAT PROBLEM DOES YOUR BUSINESS SOLVE?

We make it easier for founders to keep their investors updated and enabling them to focus more on their business than IR.

WHAT IS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND YOUR BUSINESS?

 
I reported to a CEO for 3.5 years who spent 80-90% of his time on investor relations and fundraising. I felt that it was a waste of his talents and have since seen a lot of other founders who spend most of their time on their investors rather than the business, leading to failed startups and wasted capital. We strive to make it easier for founders to share information about their companies progress, using the latest technology, such as OpenAI, and to help investors get better overview of their portfolio companies enabling them to make better investment decisions – a win win for both parties.

WHAT IS YOUR MAGIC SAUCE?

We are building VenturePort on the Reactor engine via our technology partner Auga Technologies, who is also a shareholder in VenturePort. Reactor is used by a number of 100 FTSE companies and therefore we can provide the same level of data security and scalability as Barclays. Our partnership with Auga Technologies enables us to get rapid access to very talented developers and scale fast. We also have an innovative approach to investor relations by implementing OpenAI on our platform.

WHAT IS THE PLAN FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?

We want to become the global leader in investor relations for privately held companies. Starting out in Stockholm we plan to establish ourselves in all the leading startup hubs in the world. We would like VenturePort to become sort of a TrustPilot for startups and investors making it easier for investors to make investment decisions based on IR, but also to enable startups that manage IR efficiently to receive recognition for that and to be able to raise more capital at higher valuations.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU’VE FACED SO FAR?

The current market conditions makes it more difficult to raise capital, which we believe is a sign that our service is needed more than ever. That being said we are forces to make extra efforts on the funding side. In addition to that, it has been a challenge to create a good product development process in a short amount of time, that meets the requirements of our technology partner Auga Technologies who has 20+ years of developing mobile applications. We believe that we have made good progress but it is constant and ongoing work since VenturePort is a product-led company and we believe that we will succeed by creating a great product that founders actually wants to use. We have also noticed that investor relations is a sensitive topic to founders and investors, so there is a slight challenge in breaking the stigma of wanting to talk about investor relations.

HOW DO PEOPLE GET INVOLVED/BUY INTO YOUR VISION?

We would like the founders to suggest to their investors to use VenturePort for IR communication and to build the product together with founders. Founders can sign up to our beta and participate in building the product on: https://www.ventureport.com/private-beta