Target Stage

Because we think the youngest startups have the greatest "Black Swan" potential, we will focus exclusively on true seed-stage ventures. They may be as early as a founding team with an idea on paper. They may be as late as ten people with an early version of the product and a few beta customers. Our goal is to give them enough funding to get them to the “early” stage where they have an initial product and customer traction (or are close enough to convince traditional investors that they will get there soon).

Companies that have been going for more than a year or have more than a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue from their primary product typically won’t be good candidates. Our valuation approach probably won’t give them a fair price and traditional professional investors would be a better source. Also, companies with existing preferred equity investors would have to convert these investors to our structure, presenting a possible logistical challenge for them.

To start, we will invest solely in technology companies. We won't limit ourselves to a particular sector within technology. We feel that the choices of entrepreneurs represent the "wisdom of crowds" as to which sectors are most promising. However, due to the amount we are willing to invest in any one company, we will have to limit investments to capital efficient, "information intensive" ventures.