joining me now is Jamison Ernest, founding partner of
blue scorpion investments. Jamison, thank you so much
for coming on the show. Thank you for having
me. It's good to have you down here on
the floor of the stock exchange. A lot of
deal activity obviously happens down here. Companies started startups
. They eventually I. P. O. What
is your outlook for 2023? I think it's gonna
be some challenges for the current companies are trying to
raise money. But I would say there's going to
be a tremendous amount of opportunities also because where we
go in, most people overlook or ignore and that's
where we found the greatest opportunities and our companies have
done phenomenally well by doing that. And so I
think that would even more people just overlooking them.
Um, it'll give us a lot more to choose
from. So in terms of companies that you've got
your eye on, what kind of companies, what
kind of sectors do you think can be successful?
That's this year. So we love the pet sector
, Pet Tech specifically. We think that head is
going to continue to grow every year. Um,
We also love the non ALCs space because we think
that as gen, Z's get more into um,
their health and less into drinking. They still want
to have cocktails, but not alcohol versions of cocktails
. So we believe the future of alcohol is actually
non alcohol and non alcohol versions of alcohol. Well
, I like that and look a lot of people
watching it. They might be doing dry january.
Maybe they had a few too many sips of alcohol
over the holidays. Sometimes that can happen. But
in terms of these non alcoholic beverage companies, is
there a name that you can share in terms of
one of the companies that you like? I would
say the one we're invested in which is Bosson,
which is a non elk platform and then under bosson
there's companies like this one which is founded by Katy
perry which is also non elk and um, blake
lively has a non out company and Vanessa hudgens has
Cali water which we like a lot that were also
involved with from an investment standpoint and I think that
it's just gonna keep growing. There's gonna be non
tequila, vodka, gin, wine, champagne,
beer, everything yeah, health as well. Right
as we like to stay here on this show.
Um, so VC funding obviously part of this equation
as well, I know that you have money to
put to work but overall, any expectations in the
VC space in 2023 how your fund might differ.
I would say that we're probably the most agile and
um, hands on investment fund out there for VC
. Our founders are truly are partners and so many
capacities and our friends on top of it, we
celebrate holidays and birthdays with them. It's much more
of a family atmosphere than just writing a check.
So I would say the check is the smallest thing
that we do in comparison to all of the input
and to the activities that we do at our companies
, thankfully it is an update down here on the
floor of the stock exchange, but we've seen a
lot of down days of late and of course the
over economic projection is that the economy will be under
pressure again this year. And so what would you
tell an entrepreneur who might be watching the show,
who maybe doesn't feel necessarily that sort of impetus to
pursue their own idea right now? Is it still
a good time? The best time, This is
the best time, the best opportunities. And I
think that with the way you're seeing all these layoffs
, this is the period of true innovation that will
come the way we saw 2008, this is the
next innovation period that will come from all of the
30,040,000 tech layoffs that we've seen. You're gonna see
a lot of great innovation and tech that's going to
come out of it. So of course, it's
always a good idea to think about these budding ideas
that you have pursue them, especially I think in
an environment like this, when you might lose your
job per se. But just realistically, when it
comes to funding, what would you prepare these entrepreneurs
for in terms of trying to get funding in this
environment, tips on how they pitch their startups and
things of that nature, go to your friends and
your family first, you know, create a product
that people are really gonna love, create a product
that you really love and that you're like a super
user of and then your investors should be super users
of your product. You know, we're super users
of all of our products that we invested in Van
Loon being one of our favorites Van Leeuwen ice cream
. And you know, I love that store not
far from me actually in Brooklyn. Very good.
The pistachio, vegan ice cream happens to be my
favorite, a little plug for your company, Van
Lew in there that you invest in. But the
Consumer electronics show also underway in las Vegas right now
, we have a reporter there, we've been seeing
some of the cool technology come out of the trade
show this year. Anything that's caught your eye.
Yes, this year. Yes. So there's a
company called, you scan, have you seen it
? I haven't seen it yet. Tell me about
it. So basically it's this company where it's a
tech device that you put in your toilet and you
pee on it and when you pee on it,
it gives you your health stats in real time.
And so it gives you like your menstrual cycles,
it gives you your cholesterol levels, it gives you
all the health set, so you're able to then
effectively, no what you need to do to be
in better health or if you're in great health now
is the thought process that you would use this on
a daily basis. They use it on a daily
basis. Yeah, interesting. And so kind of
like what's the future evolution of this? You see
doctors offices using this? I do, and I
see that health tech is really gonna be the next
big wave. And so health tech being that,
you know, in real time, that your doctor
is able to monitor your health by tracking what your
apps are doing. Yeah. And and even if
you could look at um an investment that we have
called Eight Sleep, which is the world's smartest mattress
company. And so the mattress basically tracks all of
your health stats while you're sleeping. Your heart rate
, your deep sleep, your light sleep, you're
tossing your turning in the future. It will be
able to predict if you're gonna have a heart attack
and that's good. Yeah, it'll be it'll be
great. The whole thing is about being proactive,
I like it instead of reactive in your situation,
you know, it, I like it. Especially
kind of as people set their own agendas here in
this new year. I like it a lot.
Jamison Ernest, founding partner of blue scorpion investments.
Jamison, thank you. Thank you. Thank you
for having me