Alayne Perrot is not your typical equity crowdfunding investor.

‍

She said so herself.

‍

“I'm probably not a very typical crowd-fund investor.”

‍

Why?

‍

“I’m a retired climate scientist with a steady pension income that allows me to make lots of (very modest) investments.” 

‍

She is an expert in the environment, and was publishing scientific studies about climate change in the 80s, long before the mainstream was aware of the global, catastrophic problem at hand. 

‍

So she invests “in green start-ups that have real potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and moderate future global warming.”

‍

I reached out to Alayne because I saw that she was a prolific investor in startups, and I wanted to understand her motivations, what she looks for in an investment, and how that could be relevant to the startups we work with. 

‍

We spoke for nearly an hour and a half, and I’m going to attempt to condense that into 10 key ideas from Alayne. 

‍

‍

1. Investing can change the world, and investing in startups is more exciting than the stock market. But she once directly invested in a startup and got swindled so she likes to primarily now invest through Equity Crowdfunding.

‍

2. She’ll start off small, but if a company shows meaningful progress, she’ll likely invest again in future rounds: “When they come back for additional rounds, that's where I look at how well they've done so far, and how well their technology is doing in terms of adoption and things like that. Whether they're retaining their enthusiasm, that sort of thing. There’s a whole range of really relevant intuitive judgments that drive me to put more in. There are a number of companies where I put more money in three or four times.”

‍

3. She invests in what she understands. “I found myself gravitating towards things where I understood their pitch… And I don't understand most things that are concerned with electronics or AI or any of those kinds of IT related things. I'm looking at projects, which seem to me to feel to fill gaps in the technological spectrum, when it comes to fighting climate change, because that makes me feel better.”” But when it comes to technologies that impact the environment - clean energy, agricultural technology, and more - she has a basis from which to understand if the technology, and therefore investment, is any good.

‍

4. Innovation and awareness of the market matters: “I want to know that they are really doing something novel that strikes me as novel, that they are aware if there's any competition and how the project improves on any subnetting anybody else's offering.”

‍

5. Storytelling matters: “Well, I think I think the storytelling part is very important, because nobody gets excited about anything through analysis. If they can imagine it, they can invest in it. In crowdfunding, probably more than any other type of investment, it requires a good story.”

‍

6. Presentation matters: “The way they present their pitches is important. If people can't be bothered to produce something that I can’t read or understand then it’s probably not a company that will succeed… I need to understand what they're saying in their pitch and that particularly involves nice diagrams. I want charts, bold colors, I don't want spidery lines, I don't want massive amounts of verbal clutter. And, you know, some companies come up with attractive backgrounds, which add to the attractiveness of the whole presentation.” 

‍

7. Share your credibility markers: “I like to see evidence of success and good reputation, which includes things like having patents, grants, or having been chosen to take part in prestigious accelerators. They give me confidence that my intuition is not off. I guess I'm pretty decisive about what sounds to me like a real novel, innovation. But nonetheless, it's nice to feel that other people feel the same way because that's likely to affect the future success of the company”

‍

8. Diversity matters: “These funding platforms are available to everybody… I don't want to see a bunch of stale old white engineers. I mean, some companies they have one or two token females, but the token females are always doing PR or possibly accounting. Because basically, those directors will get old and they may be very stuck in the mud. I like to see companies where they're going to the trouble of reduced recruiting more diverse set of people in the company… If you've got able women engineers being appointed… I tend to support, because in order to reach their positions, they will have had to have done probably much better than the male competition.”

‍

9. Scale of impact matters: “I'm looking for big problems. The last things I was working on tended to involve the global carbon cycle, so I tend to be looking for things that can really reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, or can really increase storage of carbon in vegetation and soils, or can really reduce emissions.”

‍

10. She’s isn’t as interested in companies looking for a quick liquidity event: “With crowdfunding companies, you just have to be patient. You have to wait five or six years to really start seeing returns. If a company is just looking to sell out to some giant corporation in two or three years, I’m not enthused by that. Giant corporations tend to put things on the shelf sometimes or not pursue them as actively as you think they might. This can be surprisingly sluggish… I also don't want to see companies that want to be prematurely listed the stock exchange in a hurry because their share values are often overestimated and they plummet… I would prefer that companies begin to attract venture capital or capital from other investors who have personal interest in what they're doing, and allow them to grow.”

‍

11. Authenticity Matters: I prefer people to underpromise and over deliver, which you can see in subsequent rounds. You know, I don't like what I can best describe as cockiness. Do you use that expression in America? Cockiness when I'm not sure it's justified. It sets off prickles of bad intuition”

‍

12. Have a plan: “I  want them to know what they can realistically do in the next five years or so. Nobody can stick to it. But I like to see that they have a plan with realistic objectives.

‍

13. Top piece of advice: “Be enthusiastic. It’s a very winning characteristic, but it's got to be honest, enthusiasm. Authentic. It shows through”

‍