How We Evaluate And Decide On Investments Is Really Important When It Comes To Pitching Your Business To Us
At Sprint, there are two types of investment windows that we look to invest in: Pre-Seed and Seed.
Pre-Seed and Seed stage investments are quite different, so it’s important to see where you fit, and you can tailor your pitch in the best possible way.
Pre-Revenue (Pre Seed)
Pre-Seed investments are suited to businesses at the advanced concept/ early MVP stage. You’re likely still a small company, iterating your product and we’ll be looking to see you gaining early traction through beta customers or pilot partners and capturing valuable customer data and feedback.
Here’s the questions you need to consider.
- Who are the founders, the team and what’s their backgrounds?
- Have they worked on or foundered a global startup before?
- What makes this business a great idea?
- What do your customers think of your idea and can we see your survey data?
- Is the idea globally scalable?
- Does the idea and business model have defensible IP?
- Who are the previous investors (if any) and what’s their backgrounds? Are they going to invest in your business again?
- Who are the competitors? Why are you better and different?
- How do you explain and justify your valuation?
- What’s your secret sauce for success – why will you make it over someone else?
Revenue (Seed)
Investments at the Seed stage have begun the steps of building a great business, with a commercial offering that customers are using and that’s generating real revenue each month.
At this stage, investment capital can take your business to the next stage and know that scaling up or going global is well within your sights.
- What is the current MRR, ARR & churn rate?
- What has been the reason for the current growth and scale? How have you acquired your customers?
- What is the burn rate and what runway does the business have left?
- What money has been spent to date to get here and on what areas?
- What’s your defensible IP?
- Who are the previous investors (if any) and what’s their backgrounds?
- How will the business spend the investor capital and on what, where and when?
- Who are the next five staff hires and why?
- What global markets are next and why?
- What does your advisory board or full director board look like, who is your Chair and who are you looking for on your board?
- Who are the previous investors (if any) and what’s their backgrounds? Are they going to invest in your business again?
- Who are your competitors, why are they successful and at what valuations?
- What’s the product development roadmap for the next 12 to 24 months?
- How do you explain and justify your valuation?
- What’s your secret sauce for success – why will you make it over someone else?
Ready to pitch your business and raise funds? Discover where we invest, access Sprint Office Hours to ask questions or apply for funding with Sprint and let’s start something extraordinary.
