Now is the best time to start a company — Announcing Nordic Makers’ Pre-Seed Program

IDEAS ITCH. Ideas need to come to life. Ideas and their execution are the bedrock for our civilization and a pandemic won’t stop that. We believe that the ashes of the pandemic will be fertile ground for the startup category winners of 2030. This is why we have decided to help the most promising startup founders of 2020 by investing our children’s money and our time into companies that are just starting.

Beyond the human suffering, the economic consequences of the pandemic will be immense. A great number of students will graduate to unemployment, talented individuals will be let go from struggling companies, and perhaps most interestingly, the perceived risk of starting your own versus “secured employment” in an established company will even out.

Yet, in a time of change and challenge, there is hope. Our team built and scaled companies during earlier crises. We know that it can be done. In fact, some of the greatest companies of our day were started in an economic downturn — think IBM, Microsoft, Disney and many more. In a crisis, people tend to focus on solving meaningful problems in a frugal way.

This pandemic accelerated the use of technology and is now leapfrogging society into the future: business travel may be replaced by a remote-first-culture, rising unemployment, and a massive shift in how business and governments spend money. We are thus venturing into the unknown with unanswered questions but we can be certain that several industries will change forever.

The combination of an available pool of talented humans and opportunities in a changing world are ideal conditions for starting a new company. The missing component is capital. Over the past months, we have seen private funding come to a standstill as funds are increasingly focused on existing portfolio companies, government support to existing companies and many angel investors have struggled with liquidity caused by volatile public markets.

It’s hard to raise the startup capital when you have no proof that your idea will thrive, no MRR or massive user base — just the passion and drive of a great team on a mission. This troubles us and we will now start investing €125 000 checks in companies just being started. From application to decision within 20 days with no strings attached. Below are the details and FAQ.

Entrepreneurs don’t start companies because it is the easy thing to do but because it is too hard not to scratch the itch of an idea. Similarly, Nordic Makers was started to fill a void with angel funding in the Nordics. Several of our first angel investments have later gone to Y-Combinator or been funded by later stage funds and a couple have gone belly up. However, as the landscape shifted and the amount of angel stage funding increased, so did our focus and since we have been focused on late-seed stage investing. Our late-seed model of a dedicated lead partner that commits to hands-on working with a company is proving successful on over 30 portfolio companies. Our pre-seed program complements our core late-seed investing.

FAQ

What is the deal?

• We’ll invest €125k in return for 10% of your company using a Simple Agreement for Future (SAFE) if you are US incorporated, WISE in Sweden, HATCH in Denmark and elsewhere in the Nordics we will work to create a similar legal setup. We think that €125k is enough for frugal founders to be able to run their company and pay expenses for around 9–12 months, and sometimes even longer.

Who is eligible for funding:

• Nordic/Baltic founders in the region or diaspora
• Teams of two or more
• Has not raised any significant funding (excluding “friends and family”) to date
• You have an idea, MVP or more

Is this an accelerator?

• No.

Are there any program fees or similar to pay?

• No.

Do all Nordic Makers members invest?

• Yes. We invested through a joint pooled entity.

Is there anything beyond money?

• Network, monthly zooms (dinners etc once the world opens up).

How is this different from your “regular” investing?

• Our late-seed stage investments have a dedicated partner that commits to working with the company. At late-seed we lead, co-lead or follow in rounds, this program is fixed.