Gigle Case Study

1. How were you introduced to Pond? 
We got introduced by a respected European entrepreneur  who was referring Pond as an outstanding firm with an excellent team, plenty of experience and industry contacts.
 
2. How was your experience in securing initial funding from Pond? 
Outstanding, good questions during the due diligence process, very demanding on product, market and competitor information, and once they were convinced that we were a good investment for Pond then they became one the most dynamic and active participants in Gigle, supporting us in engagements with more VCs to complete the syndicate of investors required to complete the series A of Gigle and building the company until the exit.

3. How did you find your initial experience with Pond working side by side to build your company in the early days? 
We had excellent references of Pond as an outstanding VC supporting the company and working with the executive team to build the company. In fact, the reality far exceeded our most optimistic expectations. Working with Richard and Kent have been a real pleasure and, thanks to both of them, it has made the difficult job of building a successful company a little bit easier.

4.In what ways has Pond helped you in your journey to build a successful company? 
Financing: helping to build the right syndicate of investors, introducing us to the right people.
 
Strategy: Very demanding at the board level, requesting the market analysis together with the company and product strategies, challenging them, and forcing us to review and update them until we all believed that we were doing the right thing. They are not a substitute for the executive team, but they will review and challenge the outputs of the executive team in very positive way, ensuring that the company is always working in the right direction and with the right focus and priorities.
 
Excellent adviseà they are always available for a chat, they are always available to listen and give you their advice. They will provide feedback on the executive team, supporting and encouraging the executive team in ways that only the very best VCs understand how to.
 
And what I consider the most important value to build a successful company, Pond people never get into “panic” mode. They are very demanding, they want results, but if there is any problem or issue they don’t “panic”; they offer their help to the executive team to overcome/fix the problem as soon as possible.
 
They understand business very well so they always make their evaluation looking at the big picture rather than a particular issue or instant in time, this is very important as any startup or company must go for good and bad times, but what it is really important is that the big picture is always positive and the slope of the company is always positive, going up. They know that and this is the advice that they will give you, in fact if there is something that needs to be change they will tell in advance or after the bad times.
 
On top of that, good contacts, good intros, excellent experience… they have helped us a lot transferring their experience to us but without interfering in our responsibility running the business, they understand very well that we know the business and they are just people demanding results and providing good advice. It looks simple but it is not.

5. When problems arose, how has Pond helped in getting you past them? 
Yes, as I said before, they don’t get into panic mode, they understand that problems or issues will always happen and they calmly and logically review them with the executive team. If the team needs advice they don’t have any problem to provide it, or if the team requests them to take any action they will do it without any problem.

6. What have you found to be the most valuable contributions from Pond?
Their capacity to be always there to listen you, support you and provide the right advice. Pond is always there and they always  respond in the right way in every situation. I’ve never had to use the words “I don’t need this now” with Pond - this is for me the most important. As a VC, on top of providing the money to run the company, they are sitting in the board of the company, and that it can become useless and potentially a source of problems for the executive team, or it can be one of the most important elements of success in a company. Pond understands this very well, and they always work with the assumption that the board has to contribute in a positive way to the company.

7. How has Pond supported you along the way? 
Yes. Without doubt, through the bad and the good times. Gigle was my first experience of being a CEO and they supported me at all times, including those issues when they had a different view than mine. That was very important because it  brings a lot of credibility to the relationship between them and the executive team / CEO, so we were always listening carefully Pond as their advice was always positive.
 
Again, Pond responsibility is not to run the company, they demand results. Having said that, they capacity to work with the CEO and the executive team is outstanding and it has been a pleasure for me.

8. What sort of strategic guidance has Pond provided you as the company has grown?
I would say that reviewing the strategic company plan, product strategy, market map/analysis was a clear way to provide outstanding guidance. Until they believe that the plan and strategy capable of maximizing the potential of the company, they keep pushing the executive team to continue working on them until they are good enough.
 
We did that during the first year of the company and I believe has been the foundation of our success.
 
9. If your company has been sold or gone public how did Pond contribute to the successful outcome?
Helping to define the right strategy for the company, helping to build the team, basically walking the whole path together to secure a successful exit.
 
10. How has your experience with Pond differed from your experience with other VCs?
We have been lucky with our investors as we are quite happy with all of them, clearly all different and all providing different value, in case of Pond their experience has been a clear asset for us together with their capacity to work with the executive team.

11. How has Pond been to work with?
A pleasure.
 
12. What would you say to prospective entrepreneurs thinking about working with Pond as a Venture Capital investor?
Listen carefully to Pond. Don’t be concerned about challenging them as you know your market, product and competitors better than anybody else, so if you manage to combine what you are your team know together with the experience and the knowledge of Pond team it is highly likely that you will succeed with your company.
 
Combine is the right word, don’t say “yes” to everything but don’t say “no” to everything either, your challenge will be to combine both but Pond team will help you without any doubt.
 
13. What would you say to prospective LPs thinking about investing in Pond IV? 
I don’t see a better team to invest on; and I’m glad to talk with the support of our results as we have produced a nice ROI to Pond investment in our company within a very short period of time. You can either read my answers to previous questions or go directly to the results in our company either way is fine to make it very clear, Pond is the right team to invest for a VC investing in companies between California, Europe or Israel.