How We Invest £30k in Student Startups
Our entire investment process
For many first-time founders, the world of Venture Capital and startup fundraising can be an opaque and inaccessible world. Diversity VC’s recent research has highlighted that warm introductions from those already embedded in the VC community can give startups a 13x higher chance of securing funding, making it harder for those from diverse backgrounds and first-time founders to even get their foot in the door. Even when these founders do get in touch with the right people, the process can be confusing and unclear, with many simply never hearing back. At Creator Fund, we’re here to support all student founders across Europe, many of whom will be first-time founders. With today being our first Investment Committee of 2019/20, we thought we’d completely lay out how we make investments. Its been built from the ground up to be as open as possible and also lean to enable us to make investments in just 2–3 weeks.
Warm introductions can give startups a 13x higher chance of securing funding, significantly disadvantaging diverse and first-time founders.
There are two ways to begin the journey of becoming a Creator Fund startup. The first is to talk to one of our student investors and ambassadors on your campus. They’re students just like you, but equipped with the expertise of being a Creator Fund Student Investor — you’ll find them alongside you in the lab, sitting next to you in the lecture theatre, three doors down in your accommodation and at all the main entrepreneurship events. If you see them around, often in a bright orange Creator Fund t-shirt, say hi — they’re all friendly and happy to answer any questions you have about entrepreneurship and fundraising. However, just as easy (and just the same chance as getting investment!) is to put an application in through our website: https://www.thecreatorfund.com). This short form will ask you for some basic information, a rough overview of what your student venture does in addition to a pitch deck if you have one.
Both of these options will feed into our internal Trello board. Every time a new startup comes in, one or two of our student investors will put themselves forward for the deal, often if they’re at the same university or have experience in a similar academic/technical area. They’ll then review the submitted information and pitch deck before reaching out and arranging a first meeting with the student founders. These meetings are less a 5-on-1-Dragons-Den-style grilling, but instead a 45–60 minute two-way conversation about your student venture. Our student investors will ask any questions that might have arisen from previous conversations or what was submitted as part of the application as well as answering any questions that you may have about Creator Fund and the benefits of joining our community.
These meetings are less a 5-on-1-Dragons-Den-style grilling, but instead a 45–60 minute two-way conversation about your student venture.
After this, the student investors will either pass and provide feedback, if unfortunately the opportunity wasn’t right for us, or put your student venture forward for a second meeting. When this happens, internally we’ll add another student investor at different university with a different speciality onto the deal. Together with the other student investors you’ve already met, they’ll use their expertise to conduct due diligence on your student venture, based on what was discussed at the first meeting, before reaching out and arranging a second meeting to be conducted over Skype. This will be a deeper dive into all aspects of your venture, especially focusing on any areas flagged up in our due diligence.
Following this, our student investors will discuss your startup with our CEO, Jamie Macfarlane — if the team has confidence in the student venture and its team, they’ll then invite them to one of our investment committees, which happen every two weeks. Before this date, we’ll ask you to fill out what we call a ‘Snapshot’ — this document provides a really easy structure for student founders to describe all the aspects of their startup. Our team of student investors will also conduct more rigorous due diligence, reaching out to industry experts in our large network to field further perspectives on your student venture. The results of both of these will be shared within the team and discussed internally before the big day.
Our investment committees are structured to not only facilitate quick decision-making, but also enable our diverse student investors to engage with student founders utilising their different backgrounds and expertises. Student founders will pitch for 20 minutes, followed by a 5 minute break where our team will congregate to discuss questions, before 20 minutes of Q & A. At each of our ICs, we have 2–3 startups pitching, and, after all the pitches, the team will discuss further for 20 minutes or so before deciding whether to invest in each team. If we decide to invest, we’ll wire £30k into the student founder’s bank accounts within a week and begin working with them to take their Creator Fund startup to the next level. It’s that simple.
Apply now to become a Creator Fund Startup: https://www.thecreatorfund.com/apply/
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the student investor or ambassador on your campus (see them all here) or drop me an email on edward@thecreatorfund.com.
~ Edward Kandel, Director of Community
