Daryl Roy was cleaning horse stalls at his Louisiana home when he was struck with an idea of how to get a meeting with a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
Roy is CEO of Thibodaux, Louisiana-based virtual- and augmented-reality training firm 3D Media, which expanded to the University Central Florida Research Park incubator in 2021.
Roy and 3D Media aim to raise $2.5 million in a seed round, and they targeted Menlo Park, California-based Andreessen Horowitz LLC as a potential investor.
Roy previously read “Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It,” written by Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Kupor. In the book, Kupor said if he wasn’t a venture capitalist, he would be a country music singer.
That resonated with country music enthusiast Roy, who told Orlando Inno he decided to write a song for Kupor and Andreessen Horowitz. “The chorus came to me, so I dropped my shovel, headed to the truck and wrote the chorus.”
Before the end of the day, Roy wrote a chorus and two verses, recorded an original song about 3D Media and sent it over to Andreessen Horowitz. That scored 3D Media a Feb. 21 meeting with Andreessen Horowitz.
Neither Central Florida nor Louisiana are venture capital hotspots, and startup investing has slowed nationwide from record levels in 2021. With that in mind, Roy didn’t want to hold back in any of his attempts to get in front of venture capital firms. “You've got to swing for the parking lot. Swing for the fences, and you’ll fly out more often than not.”
Though Roy didn’t share details, he said 3D Media expects to land a major contract later this year that would create jobs across the company, including in Orlando. The company seeks outside funding to prepare to handle the influx of work from the contract.
Typically, startups submit pitch decks to investment groups to explain the companies, lay out the amount of money they seek and get a meeting with the investment firm.
However, startup founders sometimes go a step further to catch the attention of venture capital firms, said Kathy Chiu, founding manager partner of Orland-based DeepWork Capital LLC. That includes showing up at the DeepWork office and wearing flashy outfits at conferences, she said.
Although this is a good way to win attention, companies likely won’t move closer to a deal with DeepWork without a good pitch deck, Chiu added. “Being a little interesting is good, but just being interesting isn’t.”
Out-of-the-box pitches aren’t unusual for 3D Media. When the 7-year-old company previously raised money from friends and family, it included an application in the pitch deck that allowed readers to see a miniaturized, augmented-reality version of Roy make the pitch.
Before the meeting with Andreessen Horowitz, Roy told Orlando Inno he expected to focus on the pitch deck — but Roy would be ready to perform if needed.
“I’ll have my guitar handy if he asks.”
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