FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

We are a Venture Capital fund based in Athens, investing in early stage technology startups with a strong innovation element and connection to Greece. We started with Fund I in 2018 and are currently investing out of Fund II. We provide Seed and Seed+ funding of € 0.5m - 1.5m, as well as hands on support as needed with our Seed Stage Support Stack in areas of additional fundraising, business development, pilot opportunities, talent management, financing, path to exit and others.
The terms Seed and Seed+ are widely used to refer to stages of startup development and investment. There is hardly an objective definition, and depending on the market, each fund may define it slightly differently. For us, the two stages relate to tickets of € 0.5 - € 1.5m in rounds of € 1-4m. Seed investment is usually the first or second institutional capital that comes in a company that is at the early stages of its development, but having already released its product to the market and experiencing initial traction. Seed+ refers to capital raised by a company with experienced founders, which have already achieved market traction and are on their way to a Series A raise.
At Seed stage, we aim to fund experienced technology entrepreneurs, who have a proven track in business management and achievement and whose product is launched and showing commercial traction in their target market. Hence minimum requirements are the founder's experience and a strong market pull for their offering. The later can vary according to the business model, for example a pilot, NRE agreement or commercial contract for Deep Tech companies, ARR of > 200K for B2B SaaS models or MoM growth of over 20% for B2C models. In Seed+ you probably have institutional investors already, so you know what they are looking for - just get in touch!
We provide tickets of € 500k to € 1.5m at Seed and Seed+ Stage. We also follow on invest in our portfolio companies' next funding rounds, up to € 4m.
The best way to find out is to have a look at our portfolio. We are sector agnostic and invest across technologies and industries, with a focus on B2B and Deep Tech. We are particularly keen on high-growth future-setting industries, including Fintech, Energy, Manufacturing and Cybersecurity, and working on state-of-the-art exponential technologies, such as Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Microelectronics and Robotics. Even if your company is not on one of our preferred industries, please reach out and we’ll be happy to hear about your game-changing solution.
Follow the Submit Now links on our website and let us know the basis of your company - it should take 15’ or less.
Our Seed and Seed+ investment process is ongoing and runs throughout the year. We aim at completing the evaluation within 4-8 weeks from when we read your proposal.
It means that we will provide you capital in terms of equity financing in exchange for a minority percentage of your company. We also use Convertible Debt, SAFE and equivalent instruments for our investments. We expect to make our return through the company’s increased value over time when there is an exit.
We strongly believe that there is a lot more to your success than just funding so we’ll support you by deploying our Seed Stage Support stack, with further fundraising, business development, pilot opportunities, talent management, financing, path to exit and much more.
Term Sheets are available to the teams to which we will make an offer of investment and will act as the basis for our formal agreement.
Absolutely. Our portfolio companies have already completed 15 follow on funding rounds, raising more than € 100m from Tier I investors. We make our network, so far having co-invested with 38 funds and over 80 angels, available to our portfolio companies and participate ourselves in the next round.
We usually take a Board seat or an Observer Seat in the company. Our goal is to follow the founder's lead in terms of their needs and in no way tax the team's time. We actively deploy our Seed Support Stack and help according to the startup's different needs. We find several communalities in those regardless of the nature of the startup, mainly around successful further fundraise, business development support, recruiting and talent management, financing and non dilutive funding, pilot opportunities, value chain mapping and path to exit, and other.
We like investing in technology companies with a strong innovation element that are targeting a growing market and disrupting its technology, business model, value chain or other. Ideally, we want to see companies with a defensible competitive advantage and proprietary tech, and be growth-oriented and globally minded from day one. Our founders need to show execution ability and ambition, without which even an excellent idea is void. Founders often have domain expertise related to their professional and educational background and an ability to communicate what they are building to different stakeholders. We enter into long term partnerships with our portfolio companies, so we want commitment.
At this early stage of company development, financial valuations are very theoretical. If you focus on your product and business development, financial validation will come in the next financing round and eventually your exit. Overall, our investment terms are founder and growth friendly, at the market standard across our European target audience.

Catch us on:

 

Earth

 
Greece
Europe
USA

Mars

      • Mars Center anytime and you’ll receive automatic Pre-Seed financing and unlimited office space while you’re there! Woop Woop..
 
Our mission is to work with talented founders on the most promising tech startups that target the global market and see added value to their business in using Greece for some of their activities. The country has ample technical talent, excellent value for money engineering, opportunities in creating operating centers, and low employee churn. For many founders it can also act as a test bed for their technology and product, while there is also availability of non dilutive capital and easy access to business that can act as early adopters to innovation.
You are the founder, which means you decide. We are here to enable you, suggest paths that could work, and open up opportunities in the paths you choose to take. We are also here to tell you what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear. Eventually, you are accountable for your choices, their success and their failure.
All our discussions are covered by confidentiality adhering to our internal professional code of ethics. In early evaluation stages due to the large volume of the companies we interact with, we do not provide NDAs. If we offer you a Term Sheet that you accept, and are about to kick-off our technical due-diligence, we are happy to sign an NDA.
The most efficient way is through the form, as we will be asking those questions anyway. If you are having trouble doing this, please submit via email and we will reach out.
Give it another try. If you’ve done your best trying, we trust there might be a technical issue so please contact us.
If we have not covered your questions in our (frequently updated) FAQs and you are still unclear on our funding criteria and process, do not hesitate to contact us.
We’ve got a strong network of collaborators, partners and supporters so we’d like to hear more from you! Contact us with some basic information, making sure to include who you are, what you do and how we can help.