Investment Thesis
We believe companies that have an unfair advantage in customer acquisition will outperform. This advantage is usually inherent in the business model – leveraged sales, channel partners, compliance triggers, network effects, expansion opportunities or some other element creating urgency in the market.
Team
We partner with founders and teams that share our values and are maniacally focused on acquiring and retaining customers.
Product
We look for technology innovations in both products and business models.
Market
We look for large, growing markets or markets in transition creating opportunities for disruption.
Investment Criteria
Stage
We invest at the earliest institutional stages.
Normally, we enter investments with the first or second round of institutional funding, when the total prior amount raised is less than $10 million.
Size
We make initial investments up to $2 million.
Our core, venture investments are sized between $1-2 million, with reserves of 1-2x our initial investment. We also make seed-stage investments of $100,000 when the team is still searching for product-market fit and/or a scalable customer acquisition model.
Syndication
We lead or follow depending on total size of round.
We often lead investments when the overall size of the round is $5 million or below and actively partner with other investors to syndicate the remainder of the round.
Active Management
We are active in our investments.
We believe our leverage is in our operating experience – scaling operations and growing teams. More than just showing up to quarterly board meetings, we become active advisors in our portfolio companies and usually, but not always, take formal Board seats in our investments.
Geography
We invest in the U.S. and Canada.
Our primary focus is the Midwest and other non-coastal markets. We make coastal investments occasionally when our network provides us unique insight and valuations are in line with business fundamentals.
Industry
We invest in digital technology companies.
Our portfolio includes software, data analytics, marketplaces and e-commerce companies across industries. We invest in both B2B and B2C businesses. We do not invest in medical device, life sciences or capital-intensive businesses.