What we look for

Like a lot of other angels/investors, we’re often asked what we look for when considering new investments or deals. With full credit to Robin Klein, we summarize it in the same way he’s done many times: team, tech, traction.

Team: First and foremost, it’s about the people. And just to be clear, it’s always about the people, whether we’re talking about a team to invest in, a lawyer to work with, or someone to hire. Skills are skills and can be taught, learned or refined, but a person’s true ethos and goals are paramount. With that, a founding team, partners or single founder needs to captivate us with their vision, ambition, executional ability and planning — and yes, passion.

Tech: We’re not investing in heavy R&D; usually web-based consumer or SME (SaaS) solutions. So we’re not looking for a patent portfolio, but we’d like to see something unique, innovative and which differentiates an idea from anyone else attempting the same thing.

Traction: We’ll often move forward without this last component (and do consider investing even at/just before the prototype phase), but if the first two are tick-off items, and this one is added on top, it’s a bonus.