As early-stage investors, we look for founders with the vision and tenacity to build groundbreaking companies.
The founders we back are industry insiders – they have a deep understanding and unique perspective of the problem they’re solving. We look for best in class early metrics, an engaged customer base, and strong revenue growth.
We play an active role in all our investments. We typically invest in no more than 10 companies each year, ensuring that we have the focus and bandwidth to provide meaningful ongoing support.
How does the investment process work at EVP?
We start with an introductory meeting to understand your background and the company that you’re building. If we’re excited by your vision, and there’s alignment with EVP in terms of company stage and profile, we’ll begin early due diligence. This involves diving into performance metrics, understanding the product and team in more detail, and exploring the market opportunity. We’re conscious of not wasting time, so we do our best to keep this process fair and efficient.
At the next stage, we’ll introduce you to our Investment Committee and will give you an opportunity to meet the whole EVP team. Following the Investment Committee meeting, we’ll move quickly to provide you with a term sheet, a written offer confirming the specific terms of an investment. We’ll also introduce you to other founders across the portfolio so you can hear first hand what it’s like working with EVP. Once we’re all agreed on the terms, we’ll move quickly to finalise an investment.
What stage do you invest at?
Whilst we’re early stage investors, we do not invest pre-revenue. We look for a product in market, an established early customer base and strong revenue growth.This means we invest typically at the Series A stage, but we are not too concerned about the label. If you can demonstrate a differentiated product, growing revenue and strong customer demand, we’re keen to talk.
How much do you typically invest?
Our first investment typically ranges between $1-5m. We reserve capital to be able to continue supporting you in subsequent rounds.
My company has hardware and software, are you still interested in talking?
Absolutely. We love the capital efficiency inherent in software models, and would be unlikely to invest in a pure hardware business. We’re entirely comfortable with hardware as part of a bundled product offering.
What does an active investment mean?
To us, active means involvement – not in a “we’ll tell you how to run your company” kind of way, but in a “call us whenever you need something, we’re here to be partners” kind of way. Some founders, particularly at the early stage, look to us for significant input at an operational level and will be in touch with EVP virtually on a daily basis.
Others, typically further along on the journey, turn to us for assistance on strategic decisions in relation to long term planning, organisational design, key hires and capital. Our “active” investment mandate also means we have a strong preference for serving as lead investor in funding rounds, and we always look for a board seat following our investment.
What kind of support do companies get post investment?
Founders will always get 1:1 support from their EVP investor. We have also invested in building out our own platform designed to help companies succeed. This platform provides talent support, networking across the portfolio, best practice insights, software discounts and introductions to suppliers and services you might need.
We can also provide hands-on support with reporting, forecasting, pricing, legals, user experience and marketing. At a more strategic level, we are regarded by many of our founders as trusted advisers. We provide a sounding board in relation to key decisions, and work alongside our founders to help navigate the software growth journey.