fresh.fund Calling for Founders
After a few months of intense work including events all over the city, almost 100 applications, hand picking of 16 amazing student for our investors committee and a great kick off with weekly sessions about entrepreneurship and VC investing. we feel like we’ve been talking the talk and walking the walk and it’s time to shout out to all you students or fresh graduates out there- Now it’s your turn!! This is your opportunity to build the company you’ve been dreaming about!
Apply now through a simple and friendly application form.
Terms
We typically (but not exclusively) invest $50,000 in return for equity. The funds will be invested by tzvi.vc in exchange for founders equity. The exact terms will be determined in negotiation between the fresh.fund student investors, the tzvi.vc managing partners, and the startup founders.
Having said that. When relevant, we can syndicate investments of up to $500k together with strategic investment partners from our network.
Acceleration Program
In addition to funding, portfolio companies will enjoy a tailor-made acceleration program managed by Siftech — Jerusalem’s first startup accelerator. The acceleration programs includes:
- A beautiful co-working space at the JVP media quarter — the heartbeat of Jerusalem’s startup scene
- Ongoing support and “biz dev” by the Siftech management team
- Access to a wide mentor network and connections to various industry experts and fellow founders
- When the time comes: introductions to investors and assistance in raising follow-on funding
What We’re Looking For
We’re looking for early stage startups with at least one founder who is a full-time student or recent graduate.
That said, we keep an open mind, and we’re happy to look at anything early stage. For more info on our investment sweet spot and underlying philosophy checkout this post by fresh.fund managing partner, Zaki Djemal.
Process
- The first step of the selection process is filling out the online application with initial questions about your team and idea.
- After an initial screening, we invite the applicants to meet with the most relevant representatives from our student investors committee. I some cases they might be accompanied by a fresh.fund mentor (mentors are either professional investors, domain experts or community leaders from the Jerusalem Tech community).
- From this point, the team of student investors will take the lead on the deal, and work together with their mentors to determine whether the startup in discussion is a good fit for fresh.fund. This process will entail a series of meetings with the founders, where relevant- conversations with clients or partners, industry diligence, market research etc.
- If the team of student investors determines the startup in discussion is potentially a good fit for fresh.fund, the startup will be given the opportunity to pitch their idea in front of the entire investor committee. The terms of the investment will be negotiated prior to the final pitch.
The entire process- from the first meeting with the fresh.fund student investment committee until a date is scheduled for the final pitch will take no longer than 6 weeks.
The ideal stage to apply for fresh.fund is between bootstrapping and your first significant seed round. All startups at these stages can benefit from the program.
Apply now through a simple and friendly application form.
***
A bit about Siftech
Siftech is the first startup accelerator founded in Jerusalem. It has just completed its 5th round a few months ago. Since its inception, Siftech has accelerated over 50 startups, which, as of today, have raised over 10 million dollars. Additionally, the accelerator hosted and assisted dozens of startups outside the accelerator framework through meetings, connections and industry focused projects such as EdTech, GovTech and Automotive focused projects.
In addition, over the past 2 years Siftech hosted about 400 delegations from all over the world and organized over 100 different events and meetups.
If you want to read more about the Siftech accelerator program check out this great blog post.
Why us?
fresh.fund is a unique VC founded by entrepreneurs and led by students. We are a grassroots project created as a result of as deep understanding of the VC landscape and more specifically the urgent need for early stage funding towards young and promising entrepreneurs.
For this reason our fund is structured in such a unique model, where students are actually running the fund and participating in the decision-making process. Our portfolio startups will have the great advantage of partnering not only with a VC and with the Siftech accelerator, but with 16 amazing students that will hop on board and do whatever it takes in order to push the venture forward. Essentially, once a startup joins our portfolio, it recruited only one partner on the cap table and about 20 partners in their workforce — 16 fresh.fund students, 2 GP’s from tzvi.vc and 2 staff members from Siftech.
The Need — My Take
Working for the past 2 years as the community & operations manager @ Siftech I was lucky enough to have the privilege of meeting a boatload of startup founders taking their first steps towards building a successful company from nothing. Despite the fact that Siftech has some great success stories, we frequently witnessed startup founders struggling due to shortage in capital. In many cases this resulted in delays and backlogs in the working process which is of course the worst hurdle for startup founders as time is always the name of the game in our industry. In other cases we heard founders stating they cannot go on any longer paying all the company expenses from their own pocket and so they were forced to find a job and neglect their startup. We even got approached every now and then by Siftech Alumni founders and other early stage startup founders asking if Siftech itself is capable of funding their ventures.
This is where fresh.fund comes in. At Siftech we always encourage founders from our community to work as long as possible without an investment. However, we do realize that many startups face a critical stage early on when capital is such a critical necessity that can make the difference between the success or failure. If you (or your bank account) don’t have enough stamina in order to participate in the Siftech accelerator program, if you need an injection of cash now, whether it's 20k, 50k or even 500k USD in order to move forward and reach the point where you can prove that you’re onto something, then you’re probably fresh.fund material.
Special thanks to Yoav Anaki for helping out with this post.
For further information, feel free to contact me directly — Nitzan@siftech.co
