Investor Perspective: Aditi Maliwal of Crosslink Capital

Aditi joined Crosslink in 2014, focusing on Mobile, Fintech and Internet Services investments. Prior to joining Crosslink, Aditi was an analyst in the technology, media & telecom investment banking group at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco providing M&A advisory and capital raising services for Internet & digital media and software clients. She has prior experience working at Allen & Overy LLP in Singapore and J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Hong Kong. Aditi holds a BA in Psychology from Stanford University, where she cultivated her interest in the human aspect of technology and the way it impacts lives.

What startup verticals interest you most right now?

Companies disrupting our current financial services infrastructure: changing the way we think about banks as financial institutions to technology companies enabling higher efficiency for financial services applications. There is a new crop of startups rebuilding consumer and wholesale banks, allowing users and developers to interact with financial institutions, developing account monitoring software, banking APIs and more.

Deep linking: it is going to change the way advertisers engage with mobile users and the evolution of mCommerce. The challenge is no longer around marketing, but rather around engagement, retention and finding the right target audience. Social apps are turning into portals for experiences through communication with other applications, creating a standardized way of accessing or finding functions within apps.

Applications that are device agnostic: with the new era of Apple watches, Skully Helmets, to the Samsung S6, and plethora of tablets, consumers will constantly be interacting with some kind of screen. Applications that create a seamless design and interaction experience for users are driving engagement in classrooms, workplaces, retail and various other spaces. Today users are simultaneously screening and want to be able to interact with applications across all devices seamlessly.

What are your biggest predictions for the year ahead?

I think mHealth is going to undergo a revolution this year. Apps in comprehensive diagnostics, caring and monitoring will increase accessibility to healthcare professionals, reduce costs and give patients a more personalized experience. From 3D food printing, home farming and connected home devices to mobile coaching and concierge medical services, there will be disruption in traditional health distribution channels thus broadening mHealth business models.

I also think that marketers will get a big boost from an upcoming set of ambient products and services such as Amazon’s Echo, Wit.AI, IBM Watson’s virtual store assistant etc, to derive further insights on consumers and enterprises.

Are there any specific company ideas that you really want someone to build and would potentially fund?

I think there’s a big opportunity in women’s empowerment in emerging markets. There’s a large untapped market — for both social and economic gain. I would love to see more mobile companies focused on transforming women’s livelihoods, literacy and education levels through: mobile store fronts, mobile education platforms, business tools, social communication applications for learning and helpline or medical applications for their daily lives.

I also think 2015 will be Bitcoin’s year. I am specifically interested in block applications focused on increasing security and trust through decentralized smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and distributed applications as a whole, and having real world use cases for these applications. E.g. Blockchain based risk management models for insurance or blockchain-based identity ledgers rivaling government-run databases utilizing biometric authentication.

If you could wave a magic wand and instantly have any imaginable solution to a problem you’re facing (personally or at work), what problem would you solve?

A faster plane or transit system for long-distance international travel. My immediate family lives in Singapore and extended family is in India and other parts of the world, and I would love to have a faster way to reach them and see them more regularly. Currently it takes me between 16–22 hours to get to Singapore / India. Whether this is a change in the airline industry or through something like Hyperloop, it would be great to see a faster, more efficient solution here.

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If you have a startup or you’re interested in any of Crosslink’s portfolio companies, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Aditi directly at amaliwal@crosslinkcapital.com.

Requests for Startups is a newsletter of ideas that investors, companies, and influencers would like to fund. This issue was curated by Isaac Madan and Shaurya Saluja.