Female Founder Office Hours: Meet the Investors Part II (ft. Ascension, Hambro Perks, Forward Partners, Smedvig and Playfair)

We’re hugely excited to be hosting the fully remote edition of Female Founder Office Hours in June and are very much looking forward to meeting the 100 founders.

At the same time, we think that as important as getting in the room is making the most of the opportunity while you’re there. We will be sharing material over the coming weeks to ensure all founders attending have a chance to get to know the funds and individual investors before their office hours meetings.

To this end, we published our team’s tips and advice on getting what you want from each meeting a few weeks ago. Last week, we launched Part I of our ‘Meet the Investors’ series, where we will be interviewing the 30 VCs attending Female Founder Office Hours over five weeks.

This week, we’re joined by our second group of investors at Ascension, Hambro Perks, Forward Partners, Smedvig and Playfair. Read on for insights into their investment strategy, what they enjoy discussing with founders and their top tips for office hours below:

1. What is unique about your fund?

Emma Steele, Ascension Ventures:

Ascension is an active pre-seed to Series A UK VC firm managing multiple funds such as our annual SEIS/EIS funds (sector agnostic), Fair By Design — an impact Fund which I manage, investing in mission-led founders that are tackling the drivers of the UK Poverty Premium (the extra cost of being on low-income).

This fund has a focus on Fintech, Energy, Insurtech, Transport & Food. We have also launched the Good Food Fund — a micro fund looking to democratise access to healthy food and reduce childhood obesity in the UK by investing in healthier and affordable food models.

Matilde Giglio, Hambro Perks:

I’m a Principal at Hambro Perks. We invest in European Seed and Series A startups. I know from experience that Hambro Perks is a great investor. They were one of the first institutional investors in my previous startup: I’ve been on the other side of the table!

We do two things really well:

1. Hands-on support: we have an outstanding team that helps companies from strategy, to operations, fundraising and product.
2. Global network: We have a global network of highly engaged co-investors, corporates, and portfolio companies that help our companies scale globally.

Katie Kim, Forward Partners:

At Forward Partners we’re proud of our efforts to revolutionize VC by combining capital with hands-on capability. We invest in entrepreneurs at the earliest possible stage (pre-seed and seed), and our in-house team of developers, designers, marketers and recruiters operationally support them to launch and grow their companies.

We believe we’re in the ‘entrepreneur services’ business, and are steadily building a portfolio of services to help founders realize their potential. Our latest — Forward Advances — offers revenue-based finance at startup speed.

Peter Duffy, Smedvig Capital:

At Smedvig we’ve been investing in early-stage, high-growth businesses for 25 years now, looking to support ambitious founders at Series A/B across the UK and Nordics. We are a long-term, flexible source of capital and often back companies over multiple rounds right through to exit. We aim to only make a small handful of new investments each year, which means that we have the time and resource to dedicate a lot of time to helping founding teams to scale their businesses.

Simon Blakey, Playfair Capital:

Playfair invests in pre-seed and seed-stage tech companies that aim to rethink the way we live and work. We are driven not just by delivering strong financial returns, but by being a force for good and living our values. Everything we do is intended to maximise our positive impact in the ecosystem, especially with first time and underrepresented founders.

We are defined by our ‘angel DNA’, being founder-focussed, and seeking and orchestrating collaboration. Each team member has specific domain expertise that they bring to our founders spanning sales & marketing, hiring, and commercial and financial strategy. We invest because we share each founder’s passion for their business — we love getting hands-on and our fund size is optimised to allow us to spend quality time with each founder.

2. What investments do you enjoy looking at?

Emma Steele, Ascension Ventures:

Emma Steele, Investment Manager at Ascension Ventures

I love meeting founders that have that spark and conviction to change the world and become highly scalable at the same time. Fintech and ‘fintech for good’ models looking at how new ways of looking at data can be used to solve key market failures is super interesting to me. All in all, anything that is looking to enable systemic change in society will always have my attention!

Matilde Giglio, Hambro Perks:

Matilde Giglio, Principal at Hambro Perks

At Hambro Perks we focus on fin-tech, health-tech, media, B2B SaaS and consumer tech. My background is in machine learning and consumer tech. I’m particularly excited by companies that use data to build vertical applications to solve big problems (here’s my blog on what we look for in AI companies). Blueprint is a good example of a recent investment in this area. On the consumer side, we recently invested in SteadyPay, a company that uses financial data to improve the financial wellness of all gig economy workers.

Katie Kim, Forward Partners:

Katie Kim, Associate at Forward Partners

Our sector focuses are applied AI, marketplaces and e-commerce, and we are fairly industry agnostic. I personally gravitate more towards applied AI companies, which we define as solving everyday problems with AI.

Peter Duffy, Smedvig Capital:

Peter Duffy, Associate at Smedvig Capital

One of the most interesting parts of my job is that because we’re a pretty generalist fund, I get to look at a very wide range of companies and sectors. I’m most excited by big market opportunities, where incumbents have been lazy, failed to innovate/adapt and where the existing customer experience is really poor. This can be across any sector, but we do see lots of these opportunities in B2B and enterprise software in particular.

Simon Blakey, Playfair Capital:

Simon, Vice-Chair and Non-Exec at Playfair Capital

After 20 years of investing, what I still enjoy is seeing those rare investment
opportunities where the founding team have a real passion for the problem they are attempting to solve, coupled with a deep domain expertise and compelling market dynamics. These companies give me a real buzz after a first meeting.

3. Which part of a business do you most enjoy discussing with a founder?

Emma Steele, Ascension Ventures:

I love when a founder is open about their journey to date including lessons learned and how that shapes their plans ahead. I also really enjoy talking to founders about their current or ideal team. At the seed stage, it is all about surrounding yourself with the best people to achieve your vision and it is always very interesting to get the founder’s view on talent whether existing or needed.

Matilde Giglio, Hambro Perks:

Being a founder really changed my investor mentality. I understand what it’s like to negotiate terms with VCs, raise capital, scale a product, hire people. Like all founders, I had the wins, losses and everything in between. I like helping across the full range of early-stage challenges: recruiting (how to hire experienced and talented people with a limited budget); fundraising (should I go with a top firm or a partner that I like?); product (what’s the best onboarding process?); but my core focus is to help companies go to market.

Katie Kim, Forward Partners:

My favourite part about being a VC is meeting ambitious founders who light up when they talk about their business and ideas. There is no cookie-cutter background to becoming an entrepreneur and I always begin conversations by asking about their backgrounds and paths they took to get to where they are today. After we get to know one another, I like to spend time understanding the market size and opportunity before we dig into the product and solution.

Peter Duffy, Smedvig Capital:

I want to really get to grips with the product, how it works and what customer pain point it is improving. I also want to discuss why their company is the right one to solve this, and why they’re different to any of the other solutions out there.

Simon Blakey, Playfair Capital:

It’s actually working together with founders on the problems that they come across, be it in sales, finance or talent. VCs should be the catalyst to help founders achieve their vision and therefore our true ‘value add’ has to be more than just how to prepare for the next funding round.

4. What are your top 3 tips on how to make the most of office hours?

Emma Steele, Ascension Ventures:

1. To make the most of the very short amount of time allocated, I would focus on what the investor will want to hear to provide them with enough ‘positive signals’. Unless it’s very specialist, I would spend less time on the market opportunity (chances are the investor understands the problem enough to not spend too much time on it) and focus on what you have been doing, how you will achieve your vision, with who (you and your team), what early signals validate your proposition (early trials? Customer feedback? Key value add investors on board?) and with what plan (fundraising requirements and current ask).
2. If it’s B2C or B2B2C, live demos are always good (recommend keeping it short and focusing on key features). If B2B any kind of early user feedback insights also help.
3. Adapt your questions to your audience by researching the VC and funds in advance. If the investor is not fit for the proposal discussed it is never a waste of time to talk through the proposition as the VC community is a small world! Make the VCs, a champion of your business, ask for constructive feedback and see where the potential for introductions could be made. Don’t be shy to enquire for feedback either!

Matilde Giglio, Hambro Perks:

Read my Seed Round Manual for founders here. It talks about everything from valuations to pitch decks and how to get VC-ready.

Some tips for office hours specifically:

1. Know who you are pitching to. The secret rule of thumb for VCs? Any single investment needs to be able to return the entire fund (just look at the size of their fund to figure out what this means for different firms).
2. Make the pitch concise to leave time for discussion.
3. Finish your pitch with a clear ask.

Katie Kim, Forward Partners:

Forward Partners runs Office Hours on a monthly basis so we are familiar with these short form meetings. Founders typically find the short forms difficult to navigate but I find it to be an effective way to distill what pieces of information they think is most important to bring forward. Nailing down why this opportunity and market matters, what your unfair advantages are, and why you’re the right founder to execute on this vision in a succinct message is crucial.

Peter Duffy, Smedvig Capital:

1. Make a list of things you want to get out of the session, and don’t hesitate to ask the investors lots of questions too
2. Be able to clearly and concisely articulate your value proposition — remember the listener won’t be as familiar with your market as you are
3. Ask for honest feedback, and use it to improve for next time

Simon Blakey, Playfair Capital:

1. We can’t cover everything in a short pitch so don’t come with a huge presentation
2. Be able to talk at high level about what problem you’re solving, what your solution is, why you’re the right team, and the progress/speed of progress to date
3. Follow up after office hours with those investors you click with.

5. What advice are you giving to startups on how to navigate Covid-19? Are you giving the same advice to scale-ups (post-series B)?

Emma Steele, Ascension Ventures:

Some of our impact startups have seen a flurry of activity as the social issues they are tackling are rapidly going up agendas. But we are still heading into unknown market conditions so we talk through the following with them:

• Sit down with the board to agree an 18-month runway budget still allowing you to achieve annual goals (e.g. Series A)
• Suggest moving team members into key ROI roles
• Product focus is key to ensure a competitive edge at the other end of this crisis. Be agile and listen to the market and your customers on how you should adapt the product for the new environment

Matilde Giglio, Hambro Perks:

CEOs must treat this crisis very seriously and adjust their cost base. Create as long of a runway as you can to show as much evidence of success as possible. Accept that the world has changed and there will be cost reductions. In a booming market senior executives are paid to innovate. In a contracting market they are paid to cut costs. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Should you talk to VCs right now? Yes! You need to start conversations early, to get momentum and traction. We funded two companies in the past 2 weeks — it’s hard, but deals are getting done.

Katie Kim, Forward Partners:

Preserving cash and extending runway is fundamental. Safeguarding your existing revenues and customer base while exploring other potential revenue streams can keep you afloat. The health and morale of your team are critical, so operate with transparency and honesty. VC’s are predominantly focused on their portfolio companies but are investing, albeit with a much higher bar. Be prepared to walk us through your COVID-19 planning, and how you intend to future proof your business.

(We don’t invest post Series A, so can’t comment on scale-up strategies)

Peter Duffy, Smedvig Capital:

All companies should be laser focussed on cash and runway. Keep in constant contact with your customers and try to avoid churn at all costs. Keeping a customer on delayed payment terms is better than losing them altogether.

For early stage companies — use this time to make needed improvements to your product, whilst the focus isn’t so hard on selling. For Series B+ companies, look for opportunities for new partnerships or even small acquisitions that might previously not have been possible.

Simon Blakey, Playfair Capital:

Cash is king. Extend your runway.

Disruption of the status quo can be good. Some of the best entrepreneurs I’ve seen have adjusted to turn a potentially disastrous situation to their advantage. The best deals will still get funded, but valuations, round metrics and the availability of finance is different now to pre-COVID .

If you would like to meet any of the 30 VCs participating in this remote edition of Female Founder Office Hours, please visit our events page to register until Sunday 24th May.

You can follow the Playfair team on LinkedIn, Twitter, Forbes, Vimeo and here on Medium. If you’re a male founder and would still like to pitch us, please submit your application on our open-to-anyone pitch page.

You can follow Tech Nation on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you’re a founder, you can register for the free Founders’ Network programme.