Spotlight: BMWiVentures featured team member Sam Huang

What do you focus on at BMW i Ventures?

I focus on Seed to Series B stage investments at BMW i Ventures. My responsibilities include the typical range of VC-related activities, which include deal-sourcing, diligence, execution, and portfolio support. As we’re a small team, I also help out across various areas on the operational side as well, including the sundry sorts of activities across marketing, legal, and general operations.

What was your pathway into venture capital?

I’m one of those people who serendipitously fell into venture capital. While obtaining my law degree at UC Berkeley, I did a summer internship at Google writing legal contracts. While an internship at Google is undoubtedly one of the most fun summer work experiences a student can have, I realized then that I couldn’t imagine myself dedicating 60+ hours a week to reading and writing in such obtuse legalese. So I sought out to explore what else was out there. In my last two years of law school, I worked at Bosch Ventures, which was my first taste of the venture capital world. From there, I realized that venture capital was the right path for me. The rest was history.

What do you look for in a potential investment?

My playbook for investing doesn’t significantly differ from the standard types of things VCs look for when making a potential investment, but my strategy does have certain emphases. For me, a clear and articulated value proposition that shows how a certain product differentiates itself in the market is an absolute must-have. A founding team that exhibits grit and an openness to feedback and iteration is also essential. The market opportunity also has to be large, or, if the market doesn’t exist yet, it must have the potential to grow very large. Given we at BMW i Ventures invest on the earlier side, we often have to make targeted bets in areas of ambiguity. Consequently, there are some items--like a repeatable sales motion or even product market fit--that are not critical for an early-stage startup to have completely figured out by the time of our investment. However, I make no exceptions when it comes to the value proposition, the founding team, and the market. These items I view as the foundational building blocks for any company; the rest you can build as you go.

What is your most contrarian view on an existing or emerging technology trend?

This isn’t necessarily contrarian in the automotive world but something I realize is currently contrarian after multiple conversations with others outside of the automotive industry. There’s a prevailing viewpoint that autonomous vehicles are just around the corner. From what we’ve seen over the last few years, building out an autonomous vehicle is a lot harder than what some of the earlier enthusiasts would have expected. Indeed, while autonomous vehicle development still remains a critical area of focus across automotive, many OEMs are actually more focused nowadays on the development of electric vehicles. This also has translated to we at BMW i Ventures focusing less on investments in technologies that would help build out the autonomous vehicle, as we did in our Fund I, and more on investments that help facilitate the advent of electric vehicles.

What advice would you impart to entrepreneurs?

Do not view a “no” from a potential investor, customer, or partner as the end. View it as an opportunity to turn a “no” into a “yes.”

What’s something interesting about yourself that most people may not know?

I’m a big reader. I was a diehard fiction reader as a kid, but these days you’ll mainly catch me reading nonfiction--specifically books about various locales around the world because I’m curious about how others live outside the Silicon Valley bubble. I suppose you can call me an armchair traveler. The places I have visited recently include North Korea, the slums of Mumbai, communist China, modern Afghanistan, the American manufacturing town of Janesville, and 21st-century Tibet. I’m very open to reading anything that is good, so if you have a title you think I should read, please don’t hesitate to share it with me!

About Samantha Huang

Samantha Huang is a Principal at BMW i Ventures, where she focuses on investments across AI and big data, autonomous driving, Industry 4.0, sustainability, and the next generation of human experiences. She also serves as Head of Content for the Emerging Venture Capitalists Association, which is the most active pre-partner nonprofit organization for empowering the next generation of venture capitalists. Samantha previously worked at Robert Bosch Venture Capital and in corporate development at SK Telecom. She also worked as Lead Researcher at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University on research projects centered on innovation and entrepreneurship. She holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School and an MA in history from Stanford University. Samantha is also a licensed California attorney.