Stages First in, last out

When we invest we are usually the company’s first institutional investor. The company may have raised a small amount of money from friends & family or angel investors, released a beta and gained the first customers but still has a lot of things to figure out. We call this the “0.9 stage”. We typically invest anything from a few hundred thousand dollars (or Euros, pounds, mBTCs...) up to about two million when we make a new investment and keep significant reserves for follow-on rounds. We’re always in for the long run: We know that it takes at least 5-10 years to build a large company, and when we’ve found a great company we want to stay with it as long as possible.

Geographies

Live Berlin, think world There used to be a “One hour rule” in venture capital, which said that VCs only invest in companies within a radius of one hour’s driving. At Point Nine, we believe that great talent is everywhere and that great companies can be founded (although not necessarily scaled) anywhere. That’s why we are almost agnostic when it comes to location. We're based in Berlin and thrilled that the city has become a top startup destination in Europe and maybe worldwide, but only about 1/3rd of our investments are in Germany. At last count we’ve invested in 16 countries and we’re looking forward to adding further pins to the map in the future!

Industries

SaaS, marketplaces, AI, crypto, and more As early backers of SaaS companies like Algolia, Contentful, Typeform, Zendesk and many others we’re best known for our SaaS focus and expertise. But while it’s true that we’re huge SaaS fans, we’ve also invested in a number of great online marketplaces and consumer internet companies such as Brainly, Delivery Hero, DocPlanner, Lemoncat and Westwing. In the last years, we became more and more excited about AI and crypto and the impact of these technologies on B2B software, marketplaces and other areas. Most of our investments fall into one of these themes: Software is eating the world (and moving it to the cloud) The smartphone is pretty hungry, too Large networks of engaged users are changing the world More information about our investment theses.

People

Are you an animal? Building a large, successful company is hard. Very hard. Insanely hard. There will be ups and downs and gigantic challenges which only the most dedicated entrepreneurs will be able to overcome. That’s why we’re looking for obsessively dedicated and passionate founders – animals, like we lovingly call them. To win in the market, you’ll need excellent people in all important areas like product, engineering, sales and marketing, but don’t worry if your dream team isn’t complete yet. The most important things for us are dedication, founder/market fit, and of course integrity. We love to work with experienced teams and serial entrepreneurs but we’re also happy to back young and relatively inexperienced founders if they make it up with their intelligence and their relentless drive.

How to submit a deal to us, at Point Nine?