TL;DR;
- 🎯 Overview: 12 deals per year, tech, any sector,
(co-)leading €1m to €5m seed rounds, blockbuster potential.
- 🌿 Desirable impact: we invest only in companies that are
neutral (no negative externalities) or positive. One needs to love
the mission and be proud of one's business activities - whatever the
final result.
- 🚀 Pre-market fit: we believe we can bring most value given
our background and knowhow during this period when the right mix of
operational and financial perspectives is needed and when people
need to be at ease with uncertainty and complexity.
- 🌎 Generalist: innovation happens in a non predictable way.
We invest in the most promising companies launched by the best
founders, which may not be in a preconceived subcategory.
- 🤝 Support in the 12 to 18 first months is paramount: we help
entrepreneurs make the right decisions, access to network &
knowledge, support them during stressful times, help them set up the
right culture & organization, secure the right talents with the
right conditions and help them get the right investors onboard (and
manage them).
When & how much?
We invest around 0.6m€ to 2.5m€ tickets in companies during their
uncertainty stage. Our sweet spot is the first seed round, we also
look at seed-2. Sometimes we are the very first investors, sometimes
we come after business angels.
Where?
Mostly in France. That's where most of Galion members are based and
thus where we can provide most value.
Which industry?
Any*. Imagine it's the year 2000, and one tries to depict what the
mobile internet might look like. What could have been possibly
predicted?
(*Yet, since we don't keep follow-on capital, we avoid
capital-intensive industries.)
What are you expecting from founders?
We believe a great founding team has four characteristics:
-
a strong vision and a compelling strategy to make it a reality,
-
great execution capabilities that can be assessed with their track
record and their first achievements in the company,
-
the right symbiosis in their team, with clear complementarities and
trust,
-
their attractiveness for third parties, be them investors, potential
employees, or potential clients.
We also look for specific qualities for founders: leadership,
adaptability, grit & alacrity, and smartness.
What kind of markets do you favour?
We believe there are two desirable situations:
-
colossal, oligopolistic markets, where becoming a new leader creates
gigantic successes while facing real challenges (regulation,
competition, resources already committed, etc.).
-
niches expected to expand, where new targeted companies build
singular experiences that resonate strongly with consumers
(requiring a clear sense of purpose, excellence of product building,
a strong identity, etc.).
What are your decision criteria?
At the seed stage, some of these characteristics might not be easily
observable, or only at a nascent stage. Yet, we think it is important
to highlight and anticipate them.
Here are the main drivers of our decision-making: