Our universities don't exhibit anywhere near the same 'entrepreneurial culture' vs the US equivalents (although this is slowly improving - thankfully). We also don't have the big tech companies (google/fb etc) with the means to compete with banks/hedge-funds for the highest quality engineers/PMs. In the US, these institutions serve as natural breeding grounds for startups. Without these environments, it becomes much more difficult to find like-minded people to develop ideas and raises the time/cost associated with doing so.
I joined EF on the current cohort for this reason and have been surprised (to the upside) with my fellow cohort members. They have managed to recruit some exceptionally talented and motivated people who would be difficult to find otherwise. Also, apart from the cash investment (which just serves to pay your living costs), they have a great network of industry contacts, alumni and investors.
The jury is out on whether the EF model will succeed in producing valuable companies. However, given the level of technical talent it is attracting, they are definitely solving a real problem and I believe it will outperform the YC-style accelerators who have been struggling in Europe. Hopefully they will open the investment fund up to alumni in the near future :)
Message me if you have any questions - would be happy to answer.
So, in a nutshell, EF is trying to recruit people from different areas who wants to be entrepreneurs, but doesn't have an idea/team, and EF will create suitable teams out of these people and give them money to build some product?
I have a question.
Who exactly will decide what the product would be?Is this something those people would decide among themselves, or the EF would put them on a particular project idea they think is suitable for that team?
The 30-year-old with a PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University plans to set his “media-truth-detector” loose on what he calls Russian propaganda, mostly against his native Ukraine.
Unfeasible and uninvestable, but good if you want to get an EU grant I guess. Who is even the target market? Meanwhile just follow all russian, ukrainian and western media sources and compare them.
Once you get past the headlines, is it more like a course (where you pay tuition) or an incubator (where you commit to a % of your future company in exchange for money)?
Assuming this was true for you? do you have an idea & team now? How long were you funded/hired without these two in place? Theoretically how long can one last in the program if you dont find these 2?
How long have you been burning their cash, have you raised other funds? You could be considered an even Riskier (debatable) investment than the alternate of an actual startup with an MVP actively looking for funding, so does their percentage reflect that? Did you pay an entrance fee as well?
> “We are probably the most risk-seeking investors in the world,” said Matt Clifford, EF’s co-founder.
This is a great quote, but the reality is more like: "If we didn't start a firm that invests in companies before they exist, we wouldn't have any dealflow."
> Despite the risk-–30% of the entrepreneurs EF funds drop out without ever creating a company –Clifford said he has no difficulty finding investors for his venture firm.
Most prospective LPs can't get into top funds, but in markets like the one we have today, they don't go home. They funnel their money into second, third and fourth-tier funds. There were a lot of these in the first .com boom.
I've never been through the programme, but I've worked with several people who have.
Most young entrepreneurs who "go it alone" tend to pick up a network of useful contacts - advisors, introducers, investors, corporate buyers, talented potential co-founders/employees etc - over a period of a few years. EF are very good at speeding up that process, so when you're starting your first company you've already got a base of people around you who can provide you with the support and connection you need, without you devoting large portions of your time to it.
It's easy for young entrepreneurs to downplay the importance of that network because there's a selection bias towards confident naivety amongst people who've decided to set up their own company rather than following a safer, more established path (I know I did when I first started), but looking back on it, objectively I'd say joining them is a good idea for almost any graduate entrepreneur.
Having someone who, without any real effort from you, can represent you to a VC from a position of power, make warm introductions to large numbers of angels in your domain, find you really good candidates for early-stage roles in your company, or introduce you to people in big companies who're actively looking to buy products from startups is a blessing you can almost overlook if you've got it but helps you avoid some serious pitfalls.
There is such a thing as too early. The valuation for the 8% equity here really bites.. you're getting smaller investment than a top tier accelerator and you're going through that 'accelerator' at such an early point in the product that your next step is likely another accelerator. I get that these programs can have value, but the likely outcome is messing up your cap table. It also is a bit awkward to start a start-up when your personal finances don't give you months of living expenses -- this seems like a recipe for large # of failures and taking bad money when you're too early for good money.
Doesn't YC give 120K for 7%? An incubator/accelerator that isn't as good as YC (and therefore has less to offer) should have a better deal than that to make up for the difference. Given YC as a baseline, an investment of 10K GBP == 15488 USD should be taking less than 0.9% of the company.
Founder Institute charges GBP 1k, takes 3.5% equity, redistributes monies from any liquidity event to the alumni of founders institute and takes a 15% cut of that.
Seedcamp is "€25k for 5% w/ optional further €50k for no more than 2% (totalling €75k for 7%)" [0], which at current exchange rates is around £18K for 5%.
Just as afraid to invest as any other VC/acc/angels in London. This is why it's not a Silicon Valley. I mean how are you even supposed to rent a fancy office in the center of London?
MOST accelerators will outright reject, if not make the barrier to acceptance vastly higher for any company that went through a "pre-accelerator". Being in a pre-accelerator makes it far harder to get into an accelerator. So pre-accelerator is really a misleading name.
But change the name of these organizations to "VC firms" or "angel groups" - much better description.
[+] [-] davidhunter|10 years ago|reply
Our universities don't exhibit anywhere near the same 'entrepreneurial culture' vs the US equivalents (although this is slowly improving - thankfully). We also don't have the big tech companies (google/fb etc) with the means to compete with banks/hedge-funds for the highest quality engineers/PMs. In the US, these institutions serve as natural breeding grounds for startups. Without these environments, it becomes much more difficult to find like-minded people to develop ideas and raises the time/cost associated with doing so.
I joined EF on the current cohort for this reason and have been surprised (to the upside) with my fellow cohort members. They have managed to recruit some exceptionally talented and motivated people who would be difficult to find otherwise. Also, apart from the cash investment (which just serves to pay your living costs), they have a great network of industry contacts, alumni and investors.
The jury is out on whether the EF model will succeed in producing valuable companies. However, given the level of technical talent it is attracting, they are definitely solving a real problem and I believe it will outperform the YC-style accelerators who have been struggling in Europe. Hopefully they will open the investment fund up to alumni in the near future :)
Message me if you have any questions - would be happy to answer.
[+] [-] aaggarwal|10 years ago|reply
I have a question. Who exactly will decide what the product would be?Is this something those people would decide among themselves, or the EF would put them on a particular project idea they think is suitable for that team?
[+] [-] tinkerrr|10 years ago|reply
It's interesting to note that they are trying to hire entrepreneurs the same way Google was trying to hire programmers 10 years ago.
[+] [-] mathattack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] M8|10 years ago|reply
Unfeasible and uninvestable, but good if you want to get an EU grant I guess. Who is even the target market? Meanwhile just follow all russian, ukrainian and western media sources and compare them.
[+] [-] foldr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorenbs|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bengali3|10 years ago|reply
Assuming this was true for you? do you have an idea & team now? How long were you funded/hired without these two in place? Theoretically how long can one last in the program if you dont find these 2?
How long have you been burning their cash, have you raised other funds? You could be considered an even Riskier (debatable) investment than the alternate of an actual startup with an MVP actively looking for funding, so does their percentage reflect that? Did you pay an entrance fee as well?
Thanks!
[+] [-] 7Figures2Commas|10 years ago|reply
This is a great quote, but the reality is more like: "If we didn't start a firm that invests in companies before they exist, we wouldn't have any dealflow."
> Despite the risk-–30% of the entrepreneurs EF funds drop out without ever creating a company –Clifford said he has no difficulty finding investors for his venture firm.
Most prospective LPs can't get into top funds, but in markets like the one we have today, they don't go home. They funnel their money into second, third and fourth-tier funds. There were a lot of these in the first .com boom.
[+] [-] snorkel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devanti|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gearhart|10 years ago|reply
Most young entrepreneurs who "go it alone" tend to pick up a network of useful contacts - advisors, introducers, investors, corporate buyers, talented potential co-founders/employees etc - over a period of a few years. EF are very good at speeding up that process, so when you're starting your first company you've already got a base of people around you who can provide you with the support and connection you need, without you devoting large portions of your time to it.
It's easy for young entrepreneurs to downplay the importance of that network because there's a selection bias towards confident naivety amongst people who've decided to set up their own company rather than following a safer, more established path (I know I did when I first started), but looking back on it, objectively I'd say joining them is a good idea for almost any graduate entrepreneur.
Having someone who, without any real effort from you, can represent you to a VC from a position of power, make warm introductions to large numbers of angels in your domain, find you really good candidates for early-stage roles in your company, or introduce you to people in big companies who're actively looking to buy products from startups is a blessing you can almost overlook if you've got it but helps you avoid some serious pitfalls.
[+] [-] TimPC|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bergmann|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robbiehudson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m-i-l|10 years ago|reply
[0] http://seedcamp.com/our-deal-terms/
[+] [-] M8|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solve|10 years ago|reply
But change the name of these organizations to "VC firms" or "angel groups" - much better description.
[+] [-] eculic17|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jklein11|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tkiley|10 years ago|reply
I doubt there will be a tech startup equivalent of the Backstreet Boys, though.
[+] [-] troels|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pizu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freedombeer|10 years ago|reply
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