MURAT KÖPRÜLÜ ‒ NYA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Murat Köprülü joined New York Angels in 2019, and he has been an extremely active member since. As an investment professional and philanthropist, Murat is known for supporting his founders and helping them excel throughout the investment process.
How did you meet New York Angels? Why did you choose NYA?
Before I joined New York Angels, I already knew a couple of the members. I had gone on investment missions with my firm with one of the members to Hong Kong and elsewhere. Also, I knew the reputation of New York Angels. New York Angels is truly first class – it’s at the top of the class in terms of angel groups in the world. I wanted to be part of the best of the best.
What has been your most memorable experience as a New York Angel?
My most memorable experience hasn’t been one particular event, investment or entrepreneur whom I’ve had a relationship with through New York Angels. It happened one day when I woke up early. While I am taking a shower, suddenly the light went off in my head, and I realized:
Investing is early-stage startups is really hard. When we invest in an early-stage startup, the company may have only been around for a year or so, and it really is just the figment of somebody’s imagination. In our past lives, we may have been very successful, we may have had made a lot of money, so investing in early-stage startups should be the same thing, right?
The reality is that early-stage investing is really hard, and it needs a lot of brain power, dedication and due diligence. It is very different from investing in a listed equity or security that has a lot of information that you can research. Then if it is so tough, why do we invest?
Why do you invest with New York Angels?
First off, I love the challenge. When you’ve done a lot of different things in your career, you want more challenges. Secondly, I feel safe at New York Angels. We have a tremendous team of 130+ members, and they really are partners. It is a unique situation because even in a major venture capital fund, you will not have 130 really sharp senior partners, but that is fundamentally what we have at New York Angels. We are really doing hard due diligence together in teams, and I feel safe my partners will prevent me from making stupid mistakes or investments. Finally, no other asset class on the planet can give you 10x, 50x, 100x your investment. This is the only one. So, if we hit that one, we do not have to worry about the other 45 investments you did not make money on.
What do you look for when you are investing in a company?
We have a lot of tick boxes for investing. We look for a coherent, competent, compelling team starting with the founder or co-founders. We evaluate the value proposition: is it strong enough? Does it have a big enough marketplace? Could they sell to a group of companies or individuals that are worth billions of dollars? Do they have rivals that could eat them up? Are they unique enough? There are plenty more that are in this sort of substructure of tick boxes, but what is most important is the company’s value. Right now, in a world where global liquidity is declining, interest rates are rising, discount rates are rising, cash flows are falling, the value of companies that we are buying is actually falling right now. The company that I will invest with has to have a seriously compelling value.
What do founders like most about working with you?
I have been lucky enough to make strong connections with my founders. I have learned that it is extremely beneficial to incubate founders before they come to pitch day at NYA. I build a relationship with them old style, i.e., going out to lunch, and I learned about who they are: their ethics, morality, competence, the whole nine yards. When they pitch to other New York Angel members, the founders are ready. If members invest, then we are in constant communication, and we have formed an unbreakable trust.
What's the biggest difference between companies that you see at Screening and those who make it through to Due Diligence?
Screening is the company’s first time in New York Angels. It makes a tremendous difference if they are prepared for that pitch. If the pitch deck has a coherent and compelling reasoning the company shows up differently than others to pitch day. The founder should go through several dry runs with people who are experienced in pitching. Even simple things like looking at the camera and not reading a script make a big difference. One difficult thing to watch is when a founder loses their train of thought during Pitch Day: no matter how exciting their story is, it shows up as unprepared. New York Angels members have seen hundreds of pitches, so it is very clear the ones that stand out.
What advice would you give founders who are starting to fundraise?
Do not compare your company to ideas that you know exited 12-48 months ago. That period was an era of extreme liquidity of zero interest rates. It’s a completely different era. The world has completely changed since March of this year when the Federal Reserve of the United States decided to constrain liquidity. Monetary contraction with rising interest rates and the contraction of the Federal Reserve balance sheet is almost unheard of in the economic history of this country.
When you look at your past investments, what do you think is most critical for founders to be able to deliver a successful exit?
This is a stressful business. I mean it. It is stressful for everybody - for both the founder and the investor. No matter how exciting the story is, the best founders have a calm, collected demeanor. The founder who has calmness to them typically does extremely well.
