Investment process

While you’re fundraising, you have a business to run and cannot afford to waste time. We will try to give you feedback in a timely manner and follow a process that ensures we are the right match for you. But we do not necessarily follow a prescribed formula. We can tailor our processes to meet your timeline and we encourage you to continue building your business as you consider your financing options or any additional support.

Since we receive many investment proposals, we encourage you to get an introduction from someone who knows us and prepare yourself before approaching us. Our Entrepreneurs section hopefully provides you with some useful tips.

Initially we would like to review an Executive Summary or a brief Business Plan. Your document should try to address the following questions:

  • Are you targeting a large and fast-growing market?
  • Do you have a compelling value proposition that can address the market opportunity?
  • What is the problem your business solves?
  • Who are your competitors? Can your company compete with them effectively?
  • Do you have a good team that can execute the plan?
  • How far will this money take you? Do the financials and business model make sense?

After reviewing your plan, we will request an initial meeting with you and the key members of your team to discuss your business plan. The quality and ambitions of the people running the business is probably the most important criteria for us.
 

 

Next steps

The next step in our process is the due diligence stage; we probably need to conduct the following types of due diligence:

  • Commercial: we look at the business environment of the company, market and competition;
  • Financial: we assess the financial forecasts and assumptions in your business model;
  • Technical: looks at the technology of the company, is it protected and potentially disruptive;
  • People: concerns the background and capabilities of the management team
  • Accounting: looks at the accounts (after term sheet agreement)
  • Legal: looks at legal agreements and legal risks (after term sheet agreement)

If the results from our due diligence are satisfactory, there will be a final presentation to our investment team.

Soon after this presentation we should be able to issue a Term Sheet and start the legal work before completion of the investment.

Total time from the initial meeting to completion should take 3-5 months. It might be shorter or longer than this, depending on the complexity of the transaction and the amount of due diligence needed before we invest in your business.