Yair Snir, Dell Technologies Capital: The data revolution hasn’t started yet

“There needs to be a clear line between the founders/company management role and the board/investors role: The board should advise, support, help and create value for the company in any way that makes sense for the entrepreneurs/company management. The company management has to make the decisions, execute upon them and take full credit for the success. Some investors are confused about their role,” says Yair Snir, Managing Director & VP at Dell Technologies Capital.

Snir shared his views in CTech’s exclusive investor survey conducted with participants of the Poalim Hi-Tech and Calcalist Road Show event. The event brought together dozens of startups who pitched their venture to more than 20 leading Israeli investment groups and investors.

What trends are you most excited about investing in?

Data - I believe that the “data revolution” hasn’t started yet. A lot has been said about it but not much has been done about it yet. In my opinion, the big wave is still ahead of us and similarly to digitalization, companies who won’t be data driven won’t survive.

Business models transformation - enabling companies to transform from CapEx to OpEx models, direct sales models, etc. are likely to revolutionize the industry.

Fintech - disruption of the traditional financial institutions regulation is likely to reinvent everything that we used to think and know about finance.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?

Treeverse - as part of the “data revolution”, bringing the common CI/CD capabilities to the Data Engineering space, enabling organizations to become data driven and rapidly responsive to their data evolution.

Swish.ai- reinventing the employees digital experience by applying AI to the whole space of internal tickets opening and handling (Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc.).

Which industries seem well-positioned to thrive long term? What companies are you excited about (whether in your portfolio or not), which founders?

Data – Treeverse, Pecan, Lightbits Labs, VAST Data.

Digital transformation – floLIVE.

Fintech - Rapyd, Melio

What areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup?

Cybersecurity and DevOps.

What are you - as an investor - looking for in an entrepreneur or a startup?

A solid entrepreneur in an early stage company needs to have: Deep familiarity with the problem space, vision, strong execution record or potential, mindful flexibility, openness to partner and work together.

What is your approach to VC involvement in the management of the companies they invested in?

In my opinion, there needs to be a clear line between the founders/company management role and the board/investors role: The board should advise, support, help and create value for the company in any way that makes sense for the entrepreneurs/company management. The company management has to make the decisions, execute upon them and take full credit for the success. Some investors are confused about their role.

What should be the level of a fund's involvement in solving a company's HR problems?

Dell Technologies Capital is a tier-1 silicon valley VC. As such, we have dedicated professionals who are focused on helping our portfolio companies with BizDev, customers engagement, relations with other portfolio companies, story-telling/pitching, product-market fit, marketing, PR, etc.

Where will the solution to the HR crisis come from?

Higher employees productivity, advanced remote management skills, diversity & inclusion, definition of new roles which don’t exist today, requiring a different skills set, and new technologies eliminating the dependency on full time employees.

Share with us your golden tip for an entrepreneur presenting a pitch.

Think of your co-founders and investors as if you’re getting married to them.

Be religious about your customers.

Think of your product/direction as a rented apartment - it’s the right thing and stick to it as long as it makes sense.

A product is a triangle of Tech, Customer, Use case.