eleva8or
1Who is eleva8tor?
eleva8or helps Startups in emerging markets need an automated approach to prepare themselves to access capital sources. eleva8tor is neither crowdfunding nor a fund. eleva8tor acts as an advisor to assist Startups with tools to prepare themselves for funding.
2Who are the people eleva8or?
eleva8or has two principal co-founders who have collective experience of over 20 years assisting Startups in Silicon Valley and in emerging markets. Once you signup you will have the chance to meet them and discuss your Startup.
3What sectors does eleva8tor assist in?
eleva8or typically focused on early stage companies from Startup/Angel to Series A/B and the predominate sectors are technology solutions impacting everything from social, the various industry verticals which include education, healthcare and financial services.
4In which countries are you active?
eleva8or covers all emerging markets and has actively assisted companies from the GCC, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe with advisory services and funding.
Investment
1What companies have you invested in?
Due to NDAs we have signed, we cant tell you who we have advised or funded but if we proceed with you we do share details of the companies we have assisted and in some cases have sessions with the Founder(s) of these companies.
2What are the investment criteria?
The investment criteria are defined by the investors that we deal with. We do not set the criteria and they vary depending upon the Startup opportunity.
3How should a startup’s team look like?
We’re looking for dedicated, passionate entrepreneurs who are committed to building large companies. The best teams often consist of a product genius, a rock-star developer and a sales & marketing guru, but don’t worry if your dream team isn’t complete yet. The most important things for us are dedication, business acumen 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.
And by the way, we don’t care if your team is spread across the globe or if you have your most productive hours in the middle of the night. We often work like that too.
And by the way, we don’t care if your team is spread across the globe or if you have your most productive hours in the middle of the night. We often work like that too.
4At what stages do you invest?
Our goal is to be the first institutional investor in a startup. The company may have raised a small amount of money from friends and family, launched a public beta version of the product and got some initial feedback and users but does not yet have enough traction to be considered by a larger, more traditional VC. We call this the “0.9 stage” of a company – that limbo stage when you’ve left angel investor paradise but aren’t ready for VC hell yet. In that stage – too big for private investors, too small for VCs – many startups find it hard to raise capital, and that’s when we’d like to get involved. However, we also consider investing at an even earlier stage if the concept and the team are exceptional.
5Do you invest pre-launch?
In a few cases we’ve invested based on a Powerpoint presentation, but in all of theses cases we had already known the founder for many years. Usually we want to see a product and some signs of product/market fit before we invest.
6How much do you invest?
Typical investment for Startup would be $20,000 to $100,000 and increases depending upon the stage of the Startup. Over the lifetime of a company any initial funding could include additional capital. Later stage companies can seek capital up to $1M to $2M.
7What support can I expect beyond money?
If your successful with eleva8tor, we’ll put everything we have – expertise, know-how, contacts – at work for you because we have only one goal: Help you succeed.
8How do I know that this is true?
That’s a good question, because just like we do a lot of due diligence before making any introduction to our Investor(s). Remember our Investor(s) include institutional investors and angels. After all, choosing your Investor(s) is one of the most critical decisions in the life of your startup.
9What materials should I provide when I signup?
You can look at some of the Pitches made by famous companies by clicking HERE
Other than this eleva8tor will prompt you to prepare your "eleva8tor pitch" the best decks usually consist of 10-20 slides that answer the following questions:
• What’s the problem that you’re going to solve? There are probably exceptions but most successful companies solve a large problem. Amazon, for example, solved the problem that buying books offline sucks (tiny selection, high prices). If you’ve got a solution but there’s not a large problem that it solves, you may have a problem. :-)
• How are you going to solve it? That’s the place to talk about your product or better yet, show it to us.
• What’s your business model or in other words, how are you going to make money?
• What’s your marketing strategy – how are you going to acquire thousands of businesses or millions of end users?
• How big is your market or market niche? You may not have reliable numbers but share your assumptions with us.
• Who are your competitors? List your most important competitors and tell us why you think you’re going to eat them for lunch.
• Who’s in your team and what have they done before?
• What’s the current status of the project and what are you planning to do with the funding?
• If you’ve launched already, please provide detailed KPIs. Most companies that we invest in have at least public beta already and we want to understand as well as possible how the take up of your product has been so far.
Other than this eleva8tor will prompt you to prepare your "eleva8tor pitch" the best decks usually consist of 10-20 slides that answer the following questions:
• What’s the problem that you’re going to solve? There are probably exceptions but most successful companies solve a large problem. Amazon, for example, solved the problem that buying books offline sucks (tiny selection, high prices). If you’ve got a solution but there’s not a large problem that it solves, you may have a problem. :-)
• How are you going to solve it? That’s the place to talk about your product or better yet, show it to us.
• What’s your business model or in other words, how are you going to make money?
• What’s your marketing strategy – how are you going to acquire thousands of businesses or millions of end users?
• How big is your market or market niche? You may not have reliable numbers but share your assumptions with us.
• Who are your competitors? List your most important competitors and tell us why you think you’re going to eat them for lunch.
• Who’s in your team and what have they done before?
• What’s the current status of the project and what are you planning to do with the funding?
• If you’ve launched already, please provide detailed KPIs. Most companies that we invest in have at least public beta already and we want to understand as well as possible how the take up of your product has been so far.
10How many investments get made on eleva8tor?
On average one new investment per month.
11Does eleva8tor allow co-investing with other investors?
Absolutely – especially if they bring in complementary value-added investments which compliment eleva8tor Investor network. eleva8tor network has co-invested with a variety of business angels as well as VC firms and we can also help you recruit additional investors for your round if you want to.