2. Early-stageVenture Capital firm based in Berlin
investing internationally (focus Europe)
SaaS
Network
effects
Commerce
Current key investment themes and examples:
3. Currently Point Nine Capital Fund II (40m Euro)
• PNC I - 6m Euro (launched 2009/10)
• PNC II - 40m Euro (launched 2012)
• Investment size: 100k - 1m Euro + follow-on
• Stage: seed / series-A
5. VC investment landscape looking from Berlin
(super simplified, based on perception and not exhaustive :-)
Stage
Investment
size
Seed Series A Series B
€100k
Business
Angels
€500k
€1-5M
€5M+
F&F
Accel-
erators
Grants
6. Other investor types / financing sources:
•BANKS (need collateral / cash flow / history)
•CORPORATES (can make sense, support, but issues with exit)
•STATE SUPPORT (varies over time / by region)
11. VCs tend to specialise, but in general they look for:
•Amazing teams
• Great products
• Huge / fast growing / not very competitive market opportunities
• Great unit economics
•Traction
• Exit
12. VCs look at a lot of companies
Point Nine Capital in 2012:
- 2500 business plans
- 10 investments
=> we invested in 0.4% of business we have seen in 2012. other
investors will have a similar rate
14. How do you get on the radar screen?
... and network...
15. Approach - have a Deck!
+/- 10 slides - be visual + numbers
english only
no paper
no 50 page business plan
no NDAs
=> the initial info needs to grab attention and
explain basics, not everything!
16. NDAs are bad for you
1000s of projects / year => admin
Many similar projects, we do compare
“backend of the idea” is the value + execution
Too lazy to copy your idea anyway
Slow down
No feedback
Layman
17. „We invest into lines, not dots“Mark Suster
Stay in touch & be persistant
18. The termsheet
• Price - X% shares forY$
• Liquidation Preference (who gets the money when)
• Anti-Dilution
• Controlling rights
• Future rounds (pro-rata, right of first refusal)
• Drag Along
• Vesting (when founders can lose some of their shares)
• Board
• Information rights (what to tell your investor)
• Costs
• Exclusivity
• Binding (Legal)
21. Quick case study 1
• Berlin based
• One founder - coded - simple, but first users
• Co-founder in the pipeline
•Approached referring to SaaS
• Spent quite some time educating us on the space
• Ended up investing with a London based fund
22. Quick case study 1I
• New Zealand based
•We approached proactively, while reviewing the global POS space
• Best product, some traction
• Small company - 5 guys, tens of paying users
•We invested in NZ without having been to NZ