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.

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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. Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast —

About Jeff:

TwitterLinkedInSeraphim Space

Shownotes:

Ursa SpaceJeff’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 SenseLex Fridman podcastGödel, 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!

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