How European seed firm Connect Ventures finds ‘product-first’ founders
Connect Ventures, the London-based seed-stage VC that was an early investor in Citymapper and Typeform announced a new $80 million fund last month to continue investing in product-led" founders.
Launched back in 2012, when there was a shortage of institutional capital at seed stage in Europe and micro VC was a novelty in the region, Connect Ventures invests in B2B and consumer software across Europe, including SaaS, fintech, digital health and future of work."
Running throughout the firm's investment thesis is a product focus, with the belief that product-led - or product-first" - software entrepreneurs are the kinds of founders most likely to transform the way we live and work at scale.
Connect Ventures does fewer deals per year than many seed-stage firms, promising to place bets in a smaller number of early-stage companies. It recently backed scaling startups such as Curve and TrueLayer. Keeping a compact portfolio lets the shop throw more support behind its investments to help tip the scales toward success.
To learn more about Connect's strategy going forward, I put questions to partners Sitar Teli, Pietro Bezza and Rory Stirling. We covered what makes a product-first founder, the upsides and downside of conviction investing," and the next digital product opportunities in fintech, health and the future of work.
TechCrunch: Connect Ventures positions itself as a pan-European VC investing in product-led" founders at seed stage. Can you be more specific with regards to check size, geography and the types of startups you look for?
Sitar Teli: Of course, I know it can be hard to differentiate seed funds at first glance, so it's worth digging in one layer down. Connect is a thesis-led, seed stage, product-centric fund that invests across Europe. I know we're going to dive into some of those parts later, so I'll focus on our investment strategy and what we look for. We lead seed rounds of 1-2 million (sometimes less, sometimes more) and make 8-10 investments a year. Low volume, high conviction, high support is the investment strategy we've executed since we started eight years ago.