Good to know
FAQ
At what stages do you invest? What ticket sizes do you invest?
- We usually invest a first ticket up to 1 mil. EUR, with the possibility of following on in future rounds. That means our focus is generally in the early stages, ranging from Idea to Seed – depending on the start-up, industry, country or the market. We’re your partner for the early days – identifying business opportunity, figuring out product-market fit; finding your first clients or the early stage of scaling your business.
- We prefer to have significant positions in any round that we invest in, as our approach is based around getting involved heavily post-investment. We gravitate towards leading rounds or being the second largest investor – only rarely do we invest as a small part of a large round. Consequently, the typical rounds that we invest in are smaller than 5 mil. EUR in size.
- For founders that are not ready – or willing – to take a typical institutional VC investment, we run our Inc. track Withinin Inc., we work side by side with entrepreneurs who are anywhere between a very rough idea for a business and a company with a finished product and customers. We’re not an accelerator, a structured programme or anything of the sort – we’re a partner that works with you 1-on-1 to get you and your start-up off the ground. In the Inc. track, we also offer V# Foundership to selected potential founders who want to work on their idea but their financial situation does not allow them to work on it with no income.
What industries do you invest in?
We are open to invest in a variety of industries. However, we have certain self-imposed limits to it: Before making an investment, we always make sure that we either lean on our previous knowledge or spend enough time to understand a market that is new to us. Thus, we do not invest to sectors that are far from our current knowledge domains as our goal is to be a prepared and thus valuable partner to our investee companies. Our roots are in logistics, e-commerce and fintech; with a preference for B2B or B2B2C business models.
How many companies do you invest in per year?
We’re happy to back a handful of companies a year – and focus our energy on helping them succeed. However, we’re investing our own capital and as such, we have no institutional limits on what we can do and we never pass up an opportunity to talk about a great company just because we’ve filled our quota for the year.
Based on what criteria do you select the companies you invest in?
- The initial assessment is based on whether your project fits our strategy – being within our circle of competence; located in Europe, preferrably CEE and fitting into our investment size. Ideally, this is the information we can exchange even before the first meeting!
- Our decision-making process centers around evaluating four key areas:
- Problem definition – we look for massive, painful problems – and a team that understands them well. We prefer problems that are top of mind for your potential customers – and solutions that are thus painkillers, rather than vitamins. We love problems with poor existing solutions – low NPS, large numbers of excluded customers, negative externalities, etc.
- Your solution – We look for solutions that are innovative and unique, thus making them generally hard to replicate. We’re obsessed with competitive advantages and their sources – and so should you!
- You & your team – The teams that we back are usually the absolute best ones for the job – having a deep experience with the problem that they’re solving, working well together, and covering all key risks and competences needed for the first months and years of the project. However, personal fit also matters – we’re sure you’d prefer to work with people you enjoy spending time with and have a great time – and so do we! That’s why you get to meet our partners – and especially the one who could end up leading your deal and spending years with you and your project – right away at the start of the process.
- Financials – In general, we’re looking for companies with strong unit economics (preferrably ones improving with scale!) that are capital efficient and can grow aggressively. Obviously, each start-up is at a different stage of getting there – you maybe only have a business plan – or you could have up to a few years of historical results. Either way, we’re going to go over them and discuss the key drivers of your business. Honestly, we love this part – not because we expect the business plans to actually materialise (they never do!), but because we get to learn and observe how you think about the future of your business and what will it take to get there!
What is your investment process?
- First meeting
- You will talk directly to one of our partnersfrom the very beginning – and he will lead the whole process personally.
- Honesty is one of our key values – we‘ll ask the tough questions and give you honest feedback right away – whether we‘re very excited or not investing.
- Deep Dive
- The lead partner will get into a deep discussion about your business with you – the product, business model and, of course, the team.
- With Mario, our tech-focused partner, we‘ll take a look at your technology and tech team.
- Partners‘ meeting
- The final step of our decision-making process – after the few initial meetings – is your presentation to all of our partners at the partners‘ meeting.
- We‘re all investing our own money – you‘ll get a yes or a no immediately and with no corporate „surprises“.
- Term Sheet
- If it‘s a yes, we‘ll put a simple and transparent term sheet on the table.
- We aim to make the final standard steps – the due diligence and final docs – as simple as possible. We value the founders‘ time – and believe it should be spentbuilding the business.