For companies to leave a long lasting impact, they must grow quickly, be bold, and go global. To do so, companies must engineer five things simultaneously: Product, Investment, Influence, Sales/Marketing, and Systems. For organizations looking to increase their startup engagement or seeking digital transformation, GSD Venture Studios is developing a collision point with key organizations and officials across the world. The company invites corporate partners, accelerators, and other experts for idea collaboration, building relationships with the company’s portfolio and helping launch new companies.
From an Idea to Success
In early 2019, Gary and Derek scheduled regular coffee meetings to brainstorm how they could offer innovative and meaningful solutions to frequent startup failures.
The way traditional accelerators such as Y Combinator work is, they quite literally “hand-hold” the startups throughout their formation. One of the main things that caught Gary and Derek’s eye was that for emerging groundbreaking technologies such as AI or blockchain, many young companies needed more than the traditional 13 weeks of accelerator training for a better planned product-market fit.
Venture studios have already proven to be efficient, with over $5 billion in VC and 20 large exists since 2008. There are also many countries around the world, such as Russia, have long been home to talented and visionary IT professionals that haven’t been allowed to be exposed to the Silicon Valley environment and use it as a trampoline to achieve global success because of geopolitical and cultural factors.
GSD Venture Studios’ theory follows that talent and intellect are evenly distributed across the world, but unfortunately, the opportunity is not—just like it is in the case of Russia; so, GSDVS chose the country as its main area of focus for its global initiatives. After choosing the geographic area for its main activities, the team narrowed its domain focus to the specific areas that Gary and Derek have deep expertise in AI, blockchain, and VR. Gary’s influence and success in the AI field, coupled with Derek’s knowledge of and experience in blockchain and VR, made GSDVS what it is today.
Overcome the Challenges
While there is no lack of motivation and determination among many entrepreneurs planning on launching their own startups, it’s still increasingly hard to face and overcome all the challenges with establishing global companies with enough support. And the key to success in such initiatives is a diverse, experienced team with a proven track record. GSD Venture Studios was created to explore and discover the best and most resilient teams across the globe and establish partnerships that will help organizations move in the right direction, steadily and with powerful strides.
Get Stuff Done
GSD doesn’t simply raise capital for its portfolio companies like other venture studios. Unlike traditional investors or accelerator programs, Gary Fowler and Derek Distenfield join these companies at a more senior, Co-founder-level and leveraged their gained trust, reputation, network, fundraising expertise, and experience to ensure fast growth and to #Get Stuff Done. This way, the company closed an important yet overlooked gap in the venture capital market, while providing guidance and advice to the emerging global companies. And, unlike the rest of the venture capital industry, it is ready to dive into the work headfast and invest their full time and energy to see the portfolio company succeed. GSD’s mission is to help emerging companies gain momentum and expand globally.
Charismatic Business Executive
Gary Fowler is the CEO, President, and Co-founder of GSD Venture Studios. Previously, he Co-founded top CIS accelerators GVA and SKOLKOVO Startup Academy; the majority of these companies achieve success soon after the launch. He has founded 14 companies, such as Yva.ai and DY Investments, Broadiant, GVA LaunchGurus, Fowler International, Tecra, and has a successful IPO under his belt, ClickSoftware. Gary had a major contribution to the rapid growth and increasing valuation of the Menlo Parkbased AI startup he Co-founded, Yva.ai, in less than 3 years. Gary also Co-founded one of the country’s first accelerators, GVA Launch Gurus. Most recently, Gary co-founded Yva.ai with David Yang, one of Russia’s most famous entrepreneurs. He is currently an active contributing writer for Forbes.
Gary Fowler assists the company in all phases, including sales, marketing, business development, operations at GSD, as well as offers his mentorship for all GSD portfolio companies. At all the portfolio startups at GSD, he steps in as the CEO is the portfolio companies with his partner, Derek Distenfield, who assumes the COO role and contributes to the growth and acceleration of the company with their several decades of experience. Gary has an eye for potential and can spot promising startups early on, leading them to explosive global growth from his experience startup a top accelerator and Startup Academy. Gary is based in the Silicon Valley area but travels often to Europe, Middle East, Asia, and the CIS to establish GSD’s global presence.
Establishing a Strong Presence Globally
GSDVS’s initiative of #GoingGlobal sets is a mission as discovering the best intellectual resources and developing diverse teams that will help emerging companies in AI, blockchain, and VR reach their maximum potential and establish a strong presence globally.
With technologies such as AI, VR, and blockchain sweeping across industries, transforming daily lives and business operations, it is important to be able to identify projects and ideas that can be at the forefront of this revolution and lead the change in the first place. GSDVS provides a support platform for these projects to be fostered and transformed into global companies through experienced, diverse teams of experts and the guidance of Gary and David as mentors.
Testimonials-
“Derek is a champion for startups and has a knack for providing the right advice that is not always what you want to hear but is practical. He has been very helpful. He was a key early mentor in my career as an entrepreneur.”- Andrew Baer, Content Manager at Aspiration Marketing
“Gary Fowler is one of the best execution CEOs, starting from zero and getting to funding. He is deeply connected in Silicon Valley with a vast network of very high-level contacts, well respected as the go-to startup CEO to take a project from an idea to success, and a serial entrepreneur from ecommerce to AI. He is an executive with marketing, sales and operations experience.” – Nikolai Lebedovsky, CEO at CrowdToolz.com”
“If your startup wants to go global you should find such a person as Gary Fowler. He is incredibly connected and can be a bridge to your startup’s global market expansion as today’s investors in the states don’t invest in ventures with Russian roots. So you will need a CEO like Gary Fowler.”- David Yang, Founder of ABBYY, CEO, co-founder at Yva.ai, Ph.D.
Gary Fowler | CEO and President | GSD Venture Studios
