I’m often asked what kind of companies we invest in and what stage they should be in.
Short answer: It doesn’t matter what kind of stage you’re at — as long as you’re ready for acceleration, and you can answer two big questions I like to ask:
Techstars Berlin does not have a specific vertical focus. I do not invest in e-sports or AR/VR media plays.
When vetting companies, I look for stand-out, exceptional founders who want to be great entrepreneurs.
Andrew (GoSave) had previously raised tens of millions of dollars from Sequoia, with his last startup LIFX. Stone (Eversend) was advising YCombinator founders who were building startups across Africa. David’s Beelinguapp app had won a ton of awards, and also had more than three million users when he applied. Zhanna (Anytype) didn’t have a live product or company when she applied. She did however have an extraordinarily clear product vision. She’s previously been very successful at launching apps. Subu (DiscoverDollar) has one of the most humble beginnings. When he applied, the startup had already helped Target Inc (the US retailer) recover hundreds of millions of dollars. Hilary (Bestselfy) was managing a family with two kids, spent 15 years working in the industry, and had cultivated a network of HR practitioners around her Secret-HR-Society, when she applied.
Andrew (GoSave) had previously raised tens of millions of dollars from Sequoia, with his last startup LIFX.
Stone (Eversend) was advising YCombinator founders who were building startups across Africa.
David’s Beelinguapp app had won a ton of awards, and also had more than three million users when he applied.
Zhanna (Anytype) didn’t have a live product or company when she applied. She did however have an extraordinarily clear product vision. She’s previously been very successful at launching apps.
Subu (DiscoverDollar) has one of the most humble beginnings. When he applied, the startup had already helped Target Inc (the US retailer) recover hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hilary (Bestselfy) was managing a family with two kids, spent 15 years working in the industry, and had cultivated a network of HR practitioners around her Secret-HR-Society, when she applied.
So whether it’s their first time journey straight out of university, or later on in their life, it’s really about the individuals themselves, and how they demonstrate the fact that they’re so exceptional.
Here are some of the things I look for, in companies that apply:
Preferred, but not an absolute requirement
We’ve accelerated teams that came into our programs with zero revenues, and we’ve also accelerated teams that came in with almost a million dollars in recurring revenue. The common thread between all those companies is the stellar founders, who could prove that they were the best people for the job, and that there was a real market that they could capture.
We base our decision-making on the following criteria (ranked in order of importance), when we’re going through the selection process to pick the 10 companies we’ll work with in the Techstars Berlin Accelerator, not just for the three months during the program, but for life:
What this should indicate to you, is that the ‘team’ component is the most important thing. Out of the hundreds, if not thousands of applications we receive every year, the ones that stand out showcase a team that has what it takes, to get the job done.