
Ask HN: How can I get investor intros in Berlin? - berlinftw
I will be in Berlin on Friday.  How can I get investors to pitch my startup to? We are looking at the seed stage (50-75K) and I realize this is the hardest time to raise money.  I have never raised money before.
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paskster
Please don't waste your time pitching to investors in this position in Berlin.
If you make X < 100.000 EUR monthly revenue, then any "investor" in Berlin
will probably tell you:

"Very interesting. Let's keep in touch and come back when you make 5 * X EUR
revenue."

And if make X >= 100.000 EUR revenue per month, then you most likely don't
need 50-75K.

One thing in Berlin ist crucial: Social Proof. If you have it, you can raise 5
Mio EUR with basically zero traction and if you don't have it, it will be a
long and timeconsuming process to raise any money at a fair valuation.

Are you willing to spend 6 - 9 months to raise 50 K and do you have
significant monthly revenue? If so, your approach to meeting random investors
should work. Otherwise you might want to apply for an accelerator in Berlin
(for 25 K) or just focus in bootstrapping until you can approach international
VCs outside Berlin.

EDIT: Spelling

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raverbashing
> One thing in Berlin ist crucial: Social Proof

Then work on that. Or try to partner with someone who has that

How? Mingle. Go to meetings. Network "horizontally" (in your tech segment) and
"vertically" (in your business segment).

One way you're not getting that is by being the foreigner just off the plane
(or even there for a couple of years) that can't speak German

There's actually a funny series of bilingual books about "How to be
Berliner/How to be German" that are kind of tongue-in-cheek but it gets on the
overall mindset

And as someone said below, something like < 100k can be gotten from FFFs, so
look onto that.

~~~
paskster
> Then work on that.

I disagree. If you don't already have Social Proof, then it takes a big
investment to try getting it. I believe for 99% of all startup teams, the time
is better spent by working on your product or acquiring customers.

Networking is not working. I have seen so many startups in Berlin, who had a
good shot of making it, but who wasted time in "fundraising" or "networking"
and therefore killed their business.

Now obviously to each his own and for some it might work. But I believe only
very few people on very few occasions get something out of networking.

EDIT: added a paragraph

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raverbashing
> Networking is not working. I have seen so many startups in Berlin, who had a
> good shot of making it, but who wasted time in "fundraising" or "networking"
> and therefore killed their business.

You're right. But even for a technical person, spending "24h" coding is too
much

But ideally one person would be dedicated to coding, another, to the
business/financial/fundraising side

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jorgemf
I don't want to sound negative and I might be wrong in my assumptions but
50-75k sounds like something you can get from FFF (family, friends and fools)
or supply it with your time. So the question for me is why an investor is
going to put money in you if your family and friends don't do it.

A good idea to approach investor is through other startups, people that
already know them. You can meet startups entrepreneurs in meetups, I am sure
that Berlin is full of meet ups. And if you are not lucky this way you can
always try to find them in internet and send them a cold email. A small email
with 2-3 lines talking about your product, the money you want and for what it
is.

I wish you good luck!

~~~
privateprofile
This "why an investor is going to put money in you if your family and friends
don't do it" question has been around for long in the startup 'hype' lingo,
but I'm very curious if this has actually ever worked for founders that don't
come from wealthy backgrounds, or from families with sizable savings
(something that is a mirage for middle class families).

If you need 50-75K, perhaps it's better to just go for 100K€ (because things
will not go as planned, as some investors will tell you) and, if you can build
a solid case based on your business' performance, then reach out to angel
investors, as 100K€ is an investment exactly in their ball park (unless your
granny is sitting on 1M€ and can spare you 100K€).

PS: these things need proper planning, fundraising is a long process based on
trust and personal impressions...so, contrary to what you read around the web,
it's unlikely you'll have a lot of success (in Europe, at least) if you just
show up of the blue to pitch your case and leave a business card behind,
unless your revenue/orders are already solid and you have a realistic plan to
multiply their volume/value.

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sigi45
The question is, what you need 50k for.

For a office? Do it at home. For people? 50k is nothing. You get half an
engineere for a year.

50-100k can mean that you have friends working with you, or it can be that you
moved back to your parents to work fulltime on it.

It is such a small number in the business world, its strange that someone
thinks that 100k can make a real difference.

~~~
privateprofile
> 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year.

If you think a minute about that sentence, I think you'll realize that that
depends on where those engineers live.

100K€ can allow 2-3 people to quit their jobs to work (for a year on low pay)
on the features requested by their paying customers, or hiring an offshoring
firm to build what they can't, or just having money to apply for government
grants or cover real-world business expenses (provisional patents, technical
infrastructure, lawyers, accountants, promotion).

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nodesocket
I've been to Berlin twice now and was just there for 2 weeks last year in
August. The startup scene in Berlin is very good, with lots of really talented
designers and engineers. I'd say #1 or #2 behind Stockholm in terms of
producing high quality companies these days.

Unfortunately the investment scene in Berlin is still very conservative. There
are some angel investment programs out of Berlin (Google for Project Flying
Elephant for example). Howerver I'd echo the sentiment that VC's and even
angel's in Berlin operate like typically every other European investor, ultra
conservative, little to zero speculation, and more of a bank than investment
firm. Can't beat the US where you'll find risk takers with gobs of extra cash
willing to bet on longshots, outcasts, and pet projects.

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softwarelimits
If you would like to stay as independent as possible and keep your business in
the long term, I would recommend to try with one of the currently ongoing EU
investment programs - there is also one fond for smale-scale investment (like
single person startups etc.) - definitely it is possible to get "free money"
without high risk atm, but you must do the paperwork yourself:

[http://www.berlin.de/sen/europa/europa-in-berlin/eu-
foerderu...](http://www.berlin.de/sen/europa/europa-in-berlin/eu-foerderung/)

~~~
softwarelimits
"ERP-Gründerkredit Startgeld" might be what you are looking for.

[https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/Gr%C3%BCnde...](https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/Gr%C3%BCnden-
Erweitern/Finanzierungsangebote/ERP-Gr%C3%BCnderkredit-Startgeld-\(067\)/)

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sveme
Don't know about Berlin, but Munich/Bavaria has a pool of angels and family
offices that they could connect you with:
[http://www.baystartup.de/finanzierungs-
netzwerk/finanzierung...](http://www.baystartup.de/finanzierungs-
netzwerk/finanzierung-seedphase.html) I assume there's something like that in
Berlin as well?

Disclaimer: have not tried this myself, no idea about the time needed or
success probability.

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sjm
If you have enough time, it might be worth going somewhere like Betahaus [0]
and meeting some people there. Every Thursday they have a breakfast event
where different startups pitch what they're working on. Not always investors
present, but certainly someone there could point you in the right direction or
give you some ideas.

[0]: [https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/](https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/)

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shivram
Here's my rule of thumb on fundraising.

1)You are an expert in building companies (you've done it before, can do it
again) - this would typically be the case of repeat founders who've raised
funds before

2) you are a domain expert, or have an idea which you think you are the right
person to execute

For 1) as most people have pointed out things are a lot easier (relatively)

For 2) either you: a) have shown you are on the right track with customers
(traction) b) prove you are the right team for the job

Again, a) makes it a bit easier to go to institutional investors. If b) the
people who can be convinced of this would be the ones who know you and
therefore trust you to do it (hence Friends and Family) Other option is people
in the relevant industry who believe you know what you are doing
(uncharitably, the Fools portion of FFFs)

From what you've told us so far, you are not seed stage. You are pre-seed as
they like calling it in Europe. Institutional investors are a bad fit for this
stage. Hence FFFs would be your best bet.

I would recommend accelerators, but very VERY few of them are actually worth
it. But that does give you a leg up in the ecosystyem, by allowing your
network to expand rapidly

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jwildeboer
Or (and I am not kidding or being sarcastic), think about going to Munich
instead. For well-defined startups with a clear strategy, Munich is a decent
location. It's not "cool" or "hipsterish" but instead focused, goal-driven and
quite approachable in my experience.

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1337biz
With (50-75K) you are looking for angel investors. I have seen this going up
all the way to 250k in Europe. Having well known angels invested will help you
a long way to built that social proof everybody here is talking about.

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guaka
There are Techstars programs in Berlin, if you make it in you get 20K+100K.
Plus convenient intros with numerous investors as part of the program and
comfy intros to hundreds of investors afterwards. You also learn a few other
things about building a scalable business.

Check [http://www.techstars.com/programs/berlin-
program/](http://www.techstars.com/programs/berlin-program/) and
[https://www.metroaccelerator.com/](https://www.metroaccelerator.com/)

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StudyAnimal
Where are you actually located? I don't think there is anything happening in
Berlin on Friday. I suggest getting involved in your local startup community
and heading to wherever the events are, when they are actually there. You wont
have abny problem with investors if you actually get involved. What is your
startup by the way?

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tylerfoster
There are a lot of people on here telling you it's not going to happen, but
I'm going to assume you have a fundable idea and a track record in the domain
needed to deliver your idea.

Submit your deck to angel syndicates. If it's good, they'll invite you to a
pitch event. You can find plenty of advice online about what you need to cover
in your deck.

A decent angel syndicate could easily do 50K-75K EUR and be able to follow on
up to 1M EUR or so.

~~~
berlinftw
Could you be more specific than "angel syndicate"? Thank you.

We do have a track record of shipping in this domain.

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susi22
Silly question: Are you German? Do you have an academic degree? I ask because
then you have some options for a state sponsored fellowship.

~~~
berlinftw
No, we are not German. We are a distributed team and would like to make
connections in Germany "the startup capital of Europe" but if this is
impossible we will just bootstrap and then later raise money in America like
everyone else.

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berlinftw
I have read through this thread and I have concluded that it is unlikely for
me to make meaningful connections at our stage, or any stage, in Europe.

For the people wondering, we are building a connected device that users want
and which poops money for us and for users. Based on my research this is not a
value proposition that is of interest to venture capitalists.

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CalRobert
One way is to ask this question on HN with a great deal of information. We
don't know who you are, what you do, why you want money, or anything else that
would convince someone to gift you their time.

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neom
Hanging out at co-working spaces, incubators, startup meetups/tech meetups can
often be a good place to start, regardless of local.

~~~
philippz
I found that a huge waste of time. Most of the time you'll meet people with
the same problems as you have (not having the capacity nor the network to help
you out). I would try to network directly through people and get as much warm
intros as possible. If you can't get an intro to business angels, start with
intros to CEOs, if you can't get that, start by climbing up the tree. If that
means to start with "cold calls/mails"... then this is how you have to start.
Just make it happen.

EDIT: I spent my last year on Berlin meetups and i consider myself as pretty
outgoing, eloquent and we've traction. But it simply was not worth my time.

~~~
neom
Fair enough, I found it worked pretty well in the US and London, however they
are obviously not Berlin. Thanks for sharing.

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JMCQ87
If you can avoid it, I would not raise this kind of amount in Berlin. Not
worth the troubles.

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dorianm
You will probably find people to give you better advices at Betahaus in
Kreuzberg.

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roschdal
Hello, please send the pitch to me on e-mail: andrearo@pvv.ntnu.no

~~~
berlinftw
Sent, thank you.

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cpach
Seed stage -- have you considered applying to Y Combinator?

~~~
berlinftw
Our team is distributed and we are not at the right stage for such a massively
competitive application. Very few of the most promising startups are able to
be accepted to YCombinator.

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pryelluw
Whats the product?

~~~
berlinftw
It is a high-end, connected, smart-home type hardware product that slowly
poops bars of gold for its users while giving them great utility (which
outsiders may or may not appreciate), and also poops bars of gold for us, and
for our partners (without ad impressions or selling the information of our
users). You could draw some parallels with Nest, but we would not like to
leave our users stranded following an acquisition/sunsetting, so it is
designed to continue indefinitely in such a scenario.

