HOW WE WORK
Because we have a full-time team and an office in Tribeca, we are continually processing opportunities and deal flow. We do not have monthly or quarterly pitch nights. We simply evaluate every opportunity in real time as it comes in the door.
We are an Investment Committee driven process. This means, you do not have to meet our 50 partners to secure an investment. Our Investment Committee does the screening and evaluation for every potential investment. Entrepreneurs are typically interfacing with three to five members of the Committee before a decision is made. We will give a quick “no”, and while a “yes” may take longer, it usually involves two to four in-person meetings (or calls) to complete our process.
Once the Investment Committee has approved a deal, we circulate an Investment Memo and related materials to all our partners to bring them up to speed. Then we invite the entrepreneur to a group call with our partners so they can hear the story and ask questions. A few days later, you will learn what our commitment amount is – though as stated, our first check is typically $500,000 or more.
CRITERIA
While we have flexibility to look beyond our core area of expertise, our focus is late seed to Series A, FinTech companies. The further you drift from our core guidelines the more compelling the opportunity has to be for us to pursue it.
We come from sophisticated, global institutions and many of us have built businesses geared toward these clients. Our strength is in non-consumer, FinTech companies. This is where we can be the most helpful to early stage ventures. Other things we look for:
- Post-product, post-revenue. The lines between pre-seed, seed, seed+, pre-A, and A can be blurry. But we think of ourselves as Pre-Series A investors where the company has proven that clients care about their value proposition to the tune of $500,000+ in ARR-type revenue.
- New York City home. From experience, we have learned we can be most helpful to companies which are based in and around New York City. Our team and our network are primarily here.
- First check of $500,000. We can go lower if we have to, and we usually go higher, but companies should be looking for at least that amount of capital before they approach us.
