At Secways we want to invest in resilient founders, building category leading products.
Like all investors, we don’t know what the perfect founder looks like. We try to stick to criteria, but don’t hold us to it. We might break our own rules.
Various things we are particularly interested in right now are:
We are typically one of the first investors on your captable. We don’t invest in ideas. We think execution is what matters. We want to see that you have achieved something with your own funding before we invest.
Typically we invest in early stage rounds. What does that mean to us?
Funding needs: Our founders are looking for under $2 million in funding, at reasonable valuations.
Is it built? We need to see that the team has already built at least a minimal version of the product, and gain some traction.
Will people pay for it? We need to see evidence that customers are paying for this product.
Can you find customers? We need to see evidence that you can identify a sales channel that will bring you repeat customers.
Do you understand what it takes to grow? We want founders that understand all the levers they will have to pull, and the adaptability to get a product to scale. We want to see a business plan grounded in real execution, not just numbers on a page.
You have a why? Building a company is incredibly hard. When you care deeply about why you are doing something, it will push you through those difficult times.
Here we tend to be wide open. We love to back entrepreneurs going after niche B2B markets but we don’t have any high level constraints on markets we will or won’t back.
We are not the best fit investors for founders who have a business plan of raising millions more in capital every 12 to 18 months. We’re not opposed to our founders raising more capital later on, but we have a strong preference for sustainable growth, and business models.
We invest around the world. We have operated businesses in many countries, and we are comfortable with adapting. However, we prefer the European market.
Our initial ticket normally amounts to € 150K and we can follow-on up to € 1M.
