Jio Investments Mark India's Sustained Economic Development: Greg Sands The founder and managing partner of Costanoa Ventures believes it will create technology platforms which are important distribution vehicles for global companies

At present, experimentation and competitive transition in the work culture are notable aspects as the world changes. BIZ Experiences India invited Greg Sands, founder and managing partner of Costanoa Ventures, for a webinar to understand the insights of early-stage investment. With an emphasis on tech space, the discussion was initiated to explore the current scenario, startup trends and other aspects.

Sands highlighted the huge investments in Jio marks sustained economic development in India. It has not only created deep-middle class but also, technology platforms which are important distribution vehicles for global companies.

Targeted sectors during COVID

It is the software which supports healthcare ecosystem and even software for fintech to assist billing in healthcare. These sectors are focused on aspects such as data science and machine learning infrastructure. Sands remarked, "Half of our last 6 investments over the last 9 months have been in data science and machine learning infrastructure because that trend will be called Cambrian explosion of machine learning." He also asserted that the two of them lead to the creation of tools and platforms to build and manage those capabilities. Artificial Intelligence will indeed attract several opportunities in specific business sectors or business function.

Impact of early stage investment in data science and machine learning

Generally, every business has its own characteristics. Around 100 years ago telephone businesses started. Operations were not smooth until 1970, but, categorizing a business in 2020 as Internet business may not be viable. Every substantial growth company or an enterprise is going to be an AI driven or data driven company. Sands stated that three years ago, these tools were rudimentary and the needs could not be fully developed. With the advent of technology and data, people are optimizing business models and using them as per their requirements. This is one of the major areas of emphasis.

Pace of data science and machine learning

The pace of globalization continues in the market in an extraordinary way. Undeniably, data science and machine learning are performing in an excellent manner. Coiled computing is one of the underlining investments resulting in significant commercialization. Particularly, open-source projects are global from the beginning as they have worldwide implementation.

Growth vs acquisition

The pace of development and the evolving requirements are moving rapidly. According to Sands, there will be many independent companies looking forward to creating opportunities for substantial data management, machine learning management and data science management companies to be built as independent public companies. The rate of innovation of financial technology and its unbundling in the US and Europe were built in the context of big insurance companies and banks. Delivering capabilities to the audience across the world is one of the emerging trends at present.

Exceptional qualities of an early-stage investor

With his profound knowledge in investment, Sands quipped, "One should have incredible knowledge of the domain and curiosity along with desire to learn more and dig deeper to be an early-stage investor." He believes one should be competent to point out the nuances and identify design choices with possible reasoning. Passionate drive is another essential quality which a person should possess to be an early stage investor. Intellectual honesty enables an investor to look at facts and should also have keen judgement abilities as elaborated by Sands.