Early-stage venture capitalists face some difficult choices when selecting a winning startup. The market opportunity, management team, and viability of the concept are primary ingredients that influence investment decisions, but the complexity that stems from starting a business in a rapidly expanding and changing market, creates opportunities for big wins in a VC’s portfolio.

Eric Franchi is a Partner at MathCapital, a very active and successful early-stage venture capital firm focused on the digital transformation of marketing and media. With about 45 companies in its portfolio, the firm has focused its investments in CTV, identity, commerce media, and analytics. Before MathCapital, Eric was the co-founder of Undertone, which Perion acquired for $180m in 2015.

In this episode of Infutor’s Identity Revolution Podcast, Eric and host, Cory Davis, discuss early-stage investment strategy. According to Eric, when assessing a winning venture, start by getting to know the founders. Finding common understanding of their unique perspectives and learning their reasons for starting a business in that particular niche, can mitigate risk and increase the probability of success. Eric also explains why he believes the next 20 years will be better than the last 20 years in terms of the acceleration of technology in this space.