Welcome, Entrepreneurs
At Amigos Venture Capital, we believe that putting great effort in ensuring the perfect fit is key for ensuring a long-term viable relationship.
As we engage beyond invested capital, we see the foundation for a successful investment is a strong mutual partnership with the entrepreneurs.
We will have both a challenging and rewarding time ahead together so shaping that strong partnership spirit will be critical. As our brand name indicates at Amigos, we see ourselves as your extended team to back you in ups and downs through our experience from the telecom industry. In the companies where we invest, we commit to give our all to orchestrate the success of you as an entrepreneur.
You are leading the way and us, supporting you in every possible way throughout the rollercoaster ride of the startup life.
Finding the Brightest telecom Stars
We are aiming to engage with the brightest telecom stars of tomorrow. Qualifying to do so puts the highest of expectations on us as a partner to be able to not only fund your journey but to support you in as many aspects as there possibly are along the way.
But how do we find a good fit? It’s all about getting to know each other. Feel free to ask us the bold questions already now, it will make our partnership easier to evolve further down the road.
Speaking of partnership, we believe in the power of connections with the leading players in the industry. As a consequence, we have invested vast amounts of time and screening to identify and establish strategic partnerships with whom we believe to be the best in the connectivity industry.
We are proud of the companies we invest in. Therefore, and as a part of the evaluation process of us we encourage you to also reach out to some of the entrepreneurs and industry players that we have already partnered with to hear what they have to say about us.
If we instead point the arrow in your direction, we are looking for great people with a determination and passion to change and challenge the industry. Our desired state is where there is already a team in place to set the sails. It will be windy and quick change of weather so a previous entrepreneurial experience is not a must, but definitely a plus.
Telecom is at the core of what we do. We firmly believe that advancing connectivity in all its aspects is vital for the broader growth of the telecom industry. With this conviction, we are committed to fueling the development of the most promising startups driving innovation in this space.
We have decided to keep our investment scope tight as we want to be an active investor in the companies where we get the opportunity to invest. Why, we simply think that over time that will differentiate us as the best fit for connectivity entrepreneurs when deciding on investors to support their growth journey. However, and having said that we are open for opportunities that are adjacent to being an telecom.
Our focus in the business life cycle is early. To maybe oversimplify reality, we see four distinct phases of an start-up:
- Ideation & Validation (Pre-Seed Stage)
- Startup & Early Traction (Seed Stage)
- Growth & Scaling (Series A & Beyond)
- Maturity & Exit
Early Engagement – Building the Path to Success Together
Our experience is that deciding on an investor takes time. Also, it is based on getting to know each other. As a consequence, we welcome early contacts, even in phase 1. The decision to invest might not be taken at this stage.
However, with the experience we have from the industry and the network we bring to the table we believe that we can make your chances of reaching the next phase stronger. Sometimes, even with a first release of funding to accelerate time to reach phase 2. As such, we are typically, and desirably the first venture capitalist to invest.
To sum up, we encourage you to reach out to us early, even before you see the need of an investment. Our experience is that forming a relationship leading to an investment usually takes time – from a couple of months to over a year.
On geographies, we don’t have any preferences limiting us from where we can or want to do business. Quite the opposite, as long as the team and the idea are strong enough, we are, with representation across geographies, and members of our networks with a global mindset, here to help independently of geographical target market, now or in the future.
Does this sound interesting, we certainly hope so. So, let’s move things forward. To take the next step, we don’t have any specific format or required way to present your team and idea. However, and to move ahead we would need a high-quality business plan, including a financial role-up for us to assess. We will not grade your business plan, but we believe that it works as a tool that will help us understand how ready you are to throw yourself out there. We believe that real numbers and user cases are stronger than projections. Further, we pay close attention to your view of the addressable market and your unique way to win in that market. We recommend that you reach out using this form. This will then trigger the first step towards a potentially long haul, fruitful relationship.
Bring it on, we are looking forward to making some startup magic together. Contact us today!
Our Investment Process: From Contact to Exit
Well, a little too early to discuss stages and steps on a life changing path that we might end up experiencing together you might think. Yeah, maybe, but we tend to think that outlining what you can expect from us over the years to come will be beneficial for you as an entrepreneur when deciding among the range of investor options. Also from our perspective, this plays a healthy role. We would like to be clear with what we expect from a potential relationship with the start-ups we decide to invest in, out of the large number of invitations we receive from exciting companies.
Therefore, for us it is important to have a transparent, well described process of how we manage our evaluation, selection and the structure of the investment and the continuous support that we provide. We do believe that building strong companies requires a portion of structure, predictability and processes. As a consequence, we have established a few steps that we prefer to follow to gain traction.
Gaining trust takes time
The decisions as an entrepreneur on what people to bring onboard to back your journey are important. Also, there is a wide range of different options out there. We recommend you contact us at an early stage so that we have time to get to know each other. Preferably even before you have considered the need for an investor. Having said that, we can also be quick if the situation requires us to, so don’t hesitate to contact us even if you already have long gone plans of sourcing an investment partner for your start-up.
A business plan is ticket to play
There is no business plan that will function as the single foundation for our decision. However, if you don’t have a business plan that clearly present your idea, your addressable market and how you are going to win in that market, we can’t really see that you are investment ready. This requirement is based on experience and is simply there to ensure that your time and our time is spent in a good way.
Assessment and more details
We receive a lot of very interesting business ideas. Many of them will turn out to be well functioning enterprises. Nevertheless, we are only investing in a small percentage of all the ideas that we come across. Simply because it is not that easy to come up with a great idea, backed by passionate people, on a large addressable market waiting to be served. We promise though, that we will review all business plans, and with the ones where we see a great potential we will work together with you to further understand the details behind your ideas and assumptions.
This step will require numerous sessions to fully understand your value proposition, how you are going to win in your addressable market, getting to know your team as well as your strategic suppliers and partners. You will at this stage also get to know relevant team members at Amigos Venture Capital that have specific experience and knowledge to support your needs. This might also include access to the Amigos network that will provide you with key capabilities to accelerate to your next phase.
The Term Sheet
Given that both of us still conclude that we have a great fit and good chances of succeeding together after assessing each other thoroughly we will enter into the phase of outlining the terms for the co-operation.
A term sheet might sound very technical but can be described as the document that outlines the proposed conditions for the investment. It is to be viewed as a non-binding offer that will include detailed terms for our investment such as the size of the investment, the pre-requisites for release of capital, the share we request in return, the duration etc.
To have reached this stage is a strong evidence of us believing your idea has great potential. At this stage you will have all the details needed to understand at what terms we are willing to invest and how we can support you in scaling your business.
Due Diligence: Double-Checking Critical Assumptions
This step is relevant from our perspective if we have managed to agree the terms for the investment stated in the term sheet. A due diligence simply means to double check and validate so that all key aspects and assumptions used for the offering in the term sheet is correct. This could be to review customer and partner contracts, assess IT security, perform background checks on key people associated with your start up etc.
Formal decision to invest
Given that the Due diligence went well we should be good to go from Amigos Venture Capital. The decision to invest in line with the terms agreed in the term sheet will be formally minuted in the Amigos Venture Capital Investment committee. Another thing that is worth mentioning is that when we make a decision to invest, we normally also consider the perspective of continuous investments in your company, ourselves or through associated investors.
Mirroring the investment in a robust legal contract
With a decision to invest at hand we now have to formalize the investment decision into a legal contract. In line with international contractual standard, we will at this stage prepare a contract with good legal protection for both you as entrepreneurs and us as investors. To ensure top quality we are associated with some of the best legal expertise in the industry. For us this is important as when we invest, we do so with the highest of ambition of supporting you in building a hugely successful company.
Let the fun begin
After all this hard work it is now time to go back to the important and exiting stuff of building a strong company together. This phase is normally very intense and focused on establishing a sustainable business model, ensure a lean, but right sized organisation, growing the customer base, establish necessary internal business processes, fine tuning product offering, ensure efficient operations and distribution. In short, setting up the company for the exiting growth phase.
Reaching the desired position – and our potential exit as seed investors
Congratulations, well done, you have managed to grow the business to a significant position in the defined target. You are now a well-established company with a loyal customer base, healthy PnL, good traction and appetite for further growth.
The beauty of that is that when we reach the desired position, togehter we have experienced a memory of a lifetime, building a business that has outgrown the space where Amigos Venture Capital operates. You are now a business that are ready to evolve to the next phase. A phase where our part of the ownership of the business gets handed over to either new owners or through a listing/IPO.
To lay out where this phase might happen in time, we need to go back to the core of Amigos Venture Capital as investors. We enter at an early stage as seed investors, and we act as active owners to support the growth of your business. We are in it for the long haul, but normally after 5-8 years our value as an active investor has played out its role.
At this stage your company have reached the desired market position through a successful strategy. So, now it is time for us to initiate a dialogue on what type of business platform that best future proof your business when we are exiting our investment.
Post exit relationship and support
Having closed the loop of working many years together to establish, grow and exit, we have been through a unique period together. Years of ups and downs, successes and failures, we will have a special bond to each other for years to come even after we have formally exited our investment. The telecom industry is a small universe and managing to successfully support your business will make us forever proud and grateful. We will continue to do our best to ensure your future success.