Minds Behind Maps Ep 19 - Jeff Crusey - Basics of Venture Capital Investing in Earth Observation, Weighing Risk & The Difference between Data & Analytics Companies
Jeff Crusey is the Investment Director of Seraphim Space, an investing firm specialised in the space industry. They have invested in mulitple Earth Observation companies including Spire, Iceye, HawkEye 360 and Pixxel.
This episode in many ways serves as an introduction to investing - specifically Venture Capital (VC in short) - applied to the world of Earth Observation: How funds are raised, how VCs decided who to invest in and how they do it.
—
Episode Sponsors:
- Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
- Element84
—
About Jeff:
Shownotes:
- Ursa Space
- Jeff’s tweet having invested in 20+ space companies
- “Most Microsoft Flight Simulator players flew home in first journey”
- Books & Podcast recommendations
- Sam Harris podcast: Making Sense
- Lex Fridman podcast
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Time-stamps:
00:00 - Introduction
04:30 - Conversation starts - Jeff presents himself
06:56 - Jeff’s early days
08:48 - Climate Tech in 2008
12:16 - How Jeff got into investing
15:12 - Skills that make a good investor
18:05 - Venture Capital investing at a high level
23:31 - Finding companies to invest in
27:58 - Weighing risk before investing
28:49 - Investing in the Space industry
31:18 - Early projects Jeff invested in in 2012
32:39 - Investing in Earth Observation
36:39 - Data companies & Analytics companies: different models
39:05 - A centralized “Search Engine” of geospatial data
41:53 - Is Google Earth Engine this centralized search engine?
47:12 - Is Earth Observation a giant House of Cards?
49:16 - Metaverse: one of potential huge commercial application
54:04 - Who would build & own a metaverse
55:37 - Monitoring vs Mapping
58:20 - Weather doesn’t make it in most people’s “Earth Observation” list
1:03:15 - Projects that aren’t suited for Venture Capital
1:05:10 - Analytics applications from an investment point of view
1:07:33 - Where does the venture money come from?
1:10:50 - Investing in long term projects
1:13:53 - The exit process
1:14:05 - Exists in Earth Observation: Valuations & Bubbles
1:19:42 - The impact of Starship
1:21:55 - Book & Podcast recommendations
Feel free to reach out!