Seafund is an early stage investor. We typically invest in startups raising their pre-seed, seed and pre-series A rounds of funding.
At Seafund we apply a proprietary method of evaluation where we look at a combination of various factors including founder background, market depth and product readiness. Additionally, we assess the exit opportunities, competitive positioning and revenue model of the company.
We typically invest between $300K to $750K in the first round of investment. For follow ons, we reserve upto $2M per company.
We are more than pure financial investors, so we typically take a seat of the board to work closely with the founders in their entrepreneurial journey. As a lead/co-lead investor, we take all the major rights standard in a deal, but these vary depending on the round construct.
No, we have a focused strategy of investing in early stage ventures in India for the current fund.
We believe in backing early stage startups building businesses in deeptech and deepscience such as Semiconductors, AI, ML, Cybersecurity, Space technology, Biotechnology, Robotics, Medtech, EV, Alternate fuels etc. These are typically startups building in areas where they can build a sustainable IP on their products.
Our partners have a collective experience of over 80 years working in senior leadership roles across the various deeptech sectors globally. This enables a birds eye view of the industry and its trends, enabling the partners to support in GTM strategy, product development, customer success and revenue model optimization.
Startups looking to raise funding from Seafund are requested to apply via the Pitch form on the website. Additionally, you can reach out to either of the partners through our contact details on the website. Upon receiving the deal, the investment team will reach out to relevant startups with next steps as described above.
We prefer to invest in deep technology backed businesses. These could be either B2B or B2C focused.
We typically do deep due diligence on the founder background and technical feasibility of the product. Pre deal closure, there is financial, technology and legal due diligence carried out by reputed firms.
Absolutely, in today's world great founders do not have a lack of access capital. We believe our true value add is in the exposure that we bring having been operators previously. The entire investment team has years of experience running businesses, investing in and advising companies in the deeptech and deep science domains which enables us to offer key insights to our portfolio founders.
We follow a comprehensive PE like approach when it comes to investing, backed by our experience of working across investment landscapes. Even before investing in a company, there is a detailed exit plan outlined which is often followed up with during the life of the portfolio. Designated member focus on timely exit for the fund to maximize returns.
We understand our investments are deeptech ventures which require patient capital and have long gestation periods. Thus, success is monitored by the milestones outlined with the company which could be across product development, customer pilots or even patent applications. These KPIs are discussed and outlined at the beginning of the year with the founders.
Yes, 100%. We believe in backing businesses early and for the long term, which is why typically we follow on in the next 2-3 rounds of the fundraise of selective startups.
Of the startups that apply, our analysts reach out and have the first round of conversation with the ones that the team is interested on the basis of our thesis. Then there are two rounds with the principal and two more with the partners to cover the various aspects of the business and future growth. This process takes between 4-8 weeks.