The Founders First™ Manifesto

We believe that giving optimal support to great founding teams (a.k.a. the change makers of our immediate future) is what’s really needed to build a sustainable future, and therefore we share our first promise with you:

Founders First™ — our promise to the world to always support great Founders.

We recognise that startup entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but because of the ever-increasing attractive nature of growing a ‘startup’, there are millions of knowledgeable people out there who would like to become or support Founders. This mental and financial support is in abundance, but finding it from the right people is difficult. Therefore, it is important the community offers as much support as possible to both parties. Our support in the startup ecosystem has been running for over 8 years and from this we know that everything starts with great people, not only with great technology.

The founding team is what it’s about!

‘Founders build the change they wish to see in the world.’ We dig that. So much so, that “enabling founders to build the change they wish to see in the world” has become our company’s guiding vision. (Yes — it’s a little inspired by Gandhi). We are advocates for the power of this global entrepreneurial courage.

Therefore, Fundsup has and always will be dedicated to supporting founders by taking the friction out of early stage fundraising.

Today fundraising remains the crucial step in a young company’s growth and success, or possibly failure. We disagree with the assumption that venture fundraising should still be a painful and inefficient process by definition. Yes — raising funding is hard but it can be done much smarter. Today’s technology is smart and fast enough to provide committed founders with increased connectivity to a multitude of suitable early-stage investors, by pairing the exact needs of both parties — before taking things offline.

This methodology has become the core of our decision making at Fundsup. With that in mind, we present you with our Five Promises:

1. We promise that we will continue to make the best possible matching suggestions between early stage Founders and Investors, through the Fundsup Algorithm and the latest available (A.I) technologies, to truly enable Global Impact Investing.
2. We promise that by on-boarding new members, we will empower and educate Founders to get the best possible introduction to early stage investors.
3. We promise to democratise early-stage investing, allowing anyone to early-stage invest from just €100K annually. Meaningful matches at a low-information diet, through a simple user interface. Anytime, anywhere.
4. We promise that everything we do will always directly benefit Founders, the makers of the new, by increasing their power to choose their financial backing of choice (everyone else comes second, including services providers such as providers of capital).
5. We promise to always keep a no cost (€0/month) option for first-time Founders who wish to access Fundsup.

Our team has been supporting the global startup ecosystem since 2011 when we established Capital On Stage — a global unconventional venture funding conference where top-tier venture capitalists presented their funds to founders from around the world (held in London, Berlin, New York, Singapore, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Barcelona, …). The team has grown to becoming close to the ins and outs of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, acquiring the right and relevant knowledge. Amongst all these aspects, building behavioural change in this industry comes first, sparked by concrete knowledge of the struggles present on both sides.

So for as long as we are running Fundsup, you can trust we will keep delivering on these promises.