This is my first collaborative essay, and my collaborator is someone I’ve been following for a while: Ben Tossell. Ben is the founder of Makerpad, a website that teaches anyone how to build apps and websites without writing a single line of code. Earlier this week, Ben announced Makerpad’s acquisition by Zapier. He’s also recently raised a fund on the back of the massive community he’s built in the space: Ben Tossell’s Rolling Fund. (Go follow him on Twitter and come back).
10 years ago, most web and application designs on the internet used to depend on developers, who had…
As a startup investor, I love learning about new spaces where problems can be solved through software.
Since these white spaces can be found in any industry, I deeply believe in a founder-first investment strategy; I think founders are much better than investors at identifying opportunities. All we can do is follow them and learn from those who spend more time than us spotting problems, getting smart about them, and coming up with compelling solutions.
More often than not, these talented founders travel in packs: from those individuals building software to reshape the Future of Work, to those working on…
Thirty-five angels shaping the ecosystem
Great angel investors are the lifeblood of any entrepreneurial community. Through personal connections, reputation or hustle, they get to meet startup founders at the earliest stages of their journey, investing money, time and knowledge into their success.
San Francisco shines because of the quality of its investors, who can all be found sharing thoughts on Twitter, giving talks around the world or being listed on hundreds of “best of” lists.
The UK ecosystem has also become really deep in recent years, but you might just not know who the players are: when you think of amazing angels, it is often…
Like lots of people these days, I enjoy spending time thinking about & investing in companies shaping “the Future of Work”.
For that reason, I keep getting asked by my investor friends whether I have any cool lists of startups for them or insights I’d be happy to share.
Through The Family AAA, I’ve spent the last 8 months diving into a particular type of startup funding round: Series A.
What can I say after all that time and effort? Today’s situation can get pretty confusing:
According to Dealroom,
- Pre-seed is a round before Seed that is larger than $250K
- Seed is the first round to be larger than $1M
- Series A is the first round to be around $4–15M
Beyond figures, what are the real differences between Seed and Series A?
In large markets (US, UK), it is becoming possible to raise significant amounts of money (from $250K up to even a few million) with “relatively little”: a great founding…
The Family (AAA) Stories
Media today moves faster than anybody can keep up with. Social networks, Slack, 24/7 news… It can be overwhelming for any entrepreneur wanting to keep up with what people are saying about their company. Signal AI steps in to give you the tools you need, monitoring around the world for what really matters for your company. Co-founder & CEO David Benigson was kind enough to give us an inside look at how they raised their Series A round in December 2016 📺
How long did it take you to raise Series A?
It took two to three months to prepare and negotiate our term sheet — covering funding, corporate governance…
The Family (AAA) Stories
Life’s two great certainties are death and taxes. Farewill is hoping to combine the two, delivering simple, quick and easy-to-use tools for will writing online. In just under two years, it is already the largest will writer in the UK, writing more than 1 in 30 wills. Co-founder Dan Garrett was kind enough to give us an inside look at how they raised their Series A round in January 2019 🤖
How long did it take you to raise Series A?
The Family (AAA) Stories
Robots began to be used in manufacturing in the ’60s, letting legacy players prosper but also making them reliant on oversized machines running on proprietary operating systems that are hard to upgrade and use together with other robots. Automata is here to shake things up with their “desktop” robotic arm, Eva: smaller, cheaper and easier to program than all the rest. Co-founder Suryansh Chandra was kind enough to give us an inside look at how they raised their Series A round in March 2019 🤖
How long did it take you to raise Series A?
It took Automata 6 months from the day we formally started the process until the…
The Family (AAA) Stories
In a world where every tech company wants to be a SaaS, with a landing page that looks like this…
The Family (AAA) Stories
In a world where consumers are getting healthier and healthier, they still have trouble providing the same quality for their pets. Butternut Box makes it easy and convenient to ensure dogs get the very best diet, tailored just for them. Co-founders & best friends Kevin Glynn & David Nolan were kind enough to give us an inside look at how they raised their Series A round back in 2018 🐶
How long did it take you to raise Series A?
We raised our Series A roughly 12 months after our seed round, and in total it took us 3 months to raise, from the first meeting to having a signed…
Pietro Invernizzi
First cheque investor @Stride_VC with @fdestin & @HarryStebbings | x-@_TheFamily | I hate coriander 🌱
