How to raise money from HPV
How to raise a 100K EUR convertible note from Hasso Plattner Ventures in 1 week.
Hello, I’m the dude who started VersionEye. I was bootstrapping it for more than 1 year until I agreed to a 100K EUR convertible note from HPV (Hasso Plattner Ventures). I did my pitch on a Monday and the money was wired the same week. After the investment we got some publicity and people on LinkedIn and Xing approached me. One of their questions was how to raise money from HPV.
Raising money usually takes more time, oftentimes up to 3 months. But in 2013 HPV started a new fund for startups in Berlin. Their goal was to provide money quickly to tech startups who are working on real world problems. In 24 hours they have offered up to 100K EUR to every startup who made it through the 30 minutes pitch.
HPV schedules pitch days every few months. Every startup has a 30 minutes timeframe for presentation + Q&A. Next day all accepted applicants have to sign a contract within 24 hours otherwise they get rejected.
I applied to all this without knowing. It all started in January 2013 when I hosted the FridayAtSix show at our coworking space in Berlin. The FridayAtSix show is a monthly event for the Berlin startup scene and it is every month at another location. They do a 20 minutes interview with 2 CEOs, then there is a 15 minutes break with live music and they repeat this for 3 or 4 times. After the show there is free pizza, beer & networking.
I was one of the CEOs who got interviewed. I pitched VersionEye and talked about something relatively unknown, B2D, Business to Developers. Tim Weiss was a visitor at the show. He was listening to the interview and it made him think. At this time he didn’t work for HPV. One month later we ran into each other again at a FridayAtSix show. Having a beer with Tim I told him my story and he told me his.
Another month later, Lina Chong (Fund Manager at HPV) was interviewed by Derk Marseille at FridayAtSix. He asked her how long it takes to raise money from a VC. She answered that it usually takes between 2 and 3 months. Derk asked her why it takes so long and why there is no faster way to make small investments into early stage companies.
A few weeks later Hasso Plattner started the HPV fund to provide startups with money quickly in the form of a convertible note. At the same time Tim Weiss started to work for HPV. He called me and asked if I would like to join the next pitch day at HPV in Potsdam. I agreed, pitched and it worked out. VersionEye was the very first investment of HPV.
The pitch + Q/A was 30 minutes altogether. My pitch deck was pretty standard and had about 14 slides. I was sitting on one side of the table and on the other side there have been 7 investors looking critical and asking questions. I did my very best to answer their questions, but if I didn’t know something I told them so.
Basically, it has been a mix of luck, networking, reputation, passion and vision.
I guess this article is not what you have expected. But I hope you enjoyed reading and it will help you anyway.
Feel free to contact me on Twitter. My twitter handle is @RobertReiz.
