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Investment Strategy
BlueStream investments are in four primary sectors: communications infrastructure, enterprise and infrastructure software, storage and wireless. We identify companies that have strong management teams, large addressable markets, category-defining technology, and a strong and deep investor syndicate.
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BlueStream Approach
At the core of BlueStream's philosophy is a team-oriented approach to working with both new and existing opportunities. Each partner brings a different set of skills, including deep domain knowledge, seasoned investment experience, extensive industry relationships, and strong strategic advisory expertise. We believe in active participation, assisting management teams with recruiting, business strategy, financing and exits. BlueStream is the lead investor in most new financings and nearly always takes a board position. We work with our management teams as partners and are frequently sought out to provide advice relative to fund-raising, operational issues, channel development, corporate partnerships, acquisition strategies and the potential sale of the business.
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Stage Independent
BlueStream invests in companies at every stage. We find quality teams that are focused on building strong, sustainable, category-defining businesses. Our existing portfolio is well-balanced across early, middle and later stage opportunities. The size of our initial investments varies from $2 to $4 million for early stage and up to $10 million for later stage companies. We desire strong investing syndicates either existing within the company or that we help build as part of our initial financing.
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Investment Criteria
We spend a great deal of time with the management team when evaluating a new investment opportunity. The quality of the team, their knowledge of the industry, experience building private companies, and their understanding of the needs of the targeted customer base are critical aspects of our evaluation.
BlueStream's partnership is able to move quickly when necessary to determine our interest level in a new opportunity. We utilize additional outside industry expertise to help us properly evaluate opportunities that prove initially attractive to the partnership. We are thorough, yet responsive, and will not leave entrepreneurs or other investors wondering as to our interest level.
Our process also includes market validation through numerous conversations with existing and prospective customers. It is important that we see that the opportunity for growth is now and not 2-3 years in the future. We need to validate that the primary issue facing the company is its ability to execute and not whether there is market acceptance.
Specifically, the partners at BlueStream focus on the following criteria in determining our interest level in a new investment opportunity:
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Strong management teams with in-depth experience relevant to the company's targeted market sector |
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Previous experience working with venture-backed companies is desired but not required |
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The company needs to be targeting a large addressable market, in excess of $1 billion |
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Intellectual property or proprietary processes that are category-defining and sustainable |
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Beyond an attractive product or process it is vital that the business model is scalable |
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Our interest is in businesses that are or can make a market today, versus 2-3 years from now |
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There needs to be clearly defined exit strategy for the business, capable of delivering a high return to our Fund's investment |
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We prefer investment opportunities that are recommended to us by investors or entrepreneurs with an existing BlueStream relationship |
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A strong and deep investor syndicate is desirable |
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