Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2018: Mike Martin

It is not rare for people to start working for a company within a given team and soon realise they would rather be part of another one.

This was very much the case for Mike Martin, senior investment manager at Sky Ventures. Having started off on the firm’s investor relations team in 2010, he made a number of moves within the company over the years, successively being part of Sky’s wholesale, joint ventures and business development groups.

“After spending about four years on the finance team, and having qualified as a management accountant, I sort of decided it was not for me,” Martin said.

“I had a growing interest in building businesses, and my background in investor relations helped me understand the public-to-private market side, and got me interested in the investment, venture, and startup world.”

With Sky being in the process of setting up its venture team at the time, Martin was quickly appointed as analyst, thereby becoming one of its first joiners.

James McClurg, a GCV Rising Star 2017 winner subsequently promoted to head of investments at Sky Ventures after the departure of Marek Rubasinski, said: “Investment deals, when they happen, are often very time sensitive, and Mike navigates that process very sensibly, constantly taking up new challenges. He also has the ability to step up and work autonomously within the business and externally.

“Since joining the venture team, he has really thrived on that autonomy and freedom, and has demonstrated the ability to deliver continuous great results, be it with investment partners and portfolio companies, or internally.”

Martin’s progression within the venture team was itself quite rapid. About 18 months into his analyst role, he was made investment manager – a position that was upgraded to senior two years ago.

The senior manager too, attributes part of his success to the level of autonomy he displayed from day one: “I have been lucky in the sense that I was there from the start, when just about everything had to be done. There was a lot of upscaling and teaching everyone within the business about what we were doing, and why we were doing it. There was an internal credit that we had to go get by reporting to executives and to the board of directors.

“When I started off as an analyst, our boss was running the team in pretty much all aspects, and I primarily played a supporting role. So my speed of progression has not necessarily been about doing one deal or another, but rather about being able to lead different aspects autonomously when that was needed.”

A milestone in his career within Sky’s venture team, he however added, was the $10m investment in DataXu, a Boston-based startup providing analytics and other tools for programmatic ads, which he led January 2016.

Martin is currently looking after 15 portfolio companies, including Pluto.TV, TV4 Entertainment and InCrowd Sports.

A recent development within his unit was the successful initial public offering  of portfolio company Roku, which went public with a market cap of $1.33bn. On the first day of trading, share price went up by 70%, and within a few days, the group had managed to nearly double in value, hitting a $2.5bn market cap. According to an internal source, the IPO effectively returned all the money Sky Ventures had invested in all its portfolio companies and in running the operation even though it had only a relatively small share of Roku.

The IPO was also well-timed for Sky Ventures as it had been just about to go back to the board for its next two-year commitment of capital and so it was effectively able to say the strategic insights it delivered was effectively free and the remaining portfolio were further financial upside. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the board was supportive of its work, the source said.

Other investments closed by Sky during the year 2017 included Circle Media Labs ($2m), Fubo TV ($55m led by Northzone and Scripps Network Interactive), Molotov TV and Drone Racing League (DRL).

Assessing the progression of his unit since inception, Martin said: “I think we have learnt a lot over the last four years, and that has made us stronger. Our team is not afraid to say we got it wrong, and to accept that because we are still pretty young in the venture market.

“We feel we have lot to add to the market as a supportive investor and partner, and while we are doing very well as a team, there’s always room to grow.”

In future, Martin said he would to Sky and continue to grow with a team that, he added, he is “very passionate about, partly because I have been here from the start.”

He said: “Ultimately, when you are a small team of five or six people, everyone has to pull their weight and probably do a bit more than they normally would in a bigger unit.

“I want to keep pushing it and growing with it, and I want us to become more impactful and transformational. My personal view is that corporates need to be bolder and more ambitious with the investments they make and the companies they back. Thinking bigger from the outset is what will help create the most impactful and disruptive businesses in our industries.”

A Londoner who grew up as an expat living in places as varied as India, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Indonesia and Egypt, Martin is also a “pusher” in his spare time. He completed his first Ironman triathlon in 2014, and still keeps at it.