Investor Guide For Web Summit Lisbon: #2 Forward Partners

Web Summit is one of the world’s greatest events about entrepreneurship & tech. This year it will be held from 7th to 10th of November, and it will take place at MEO Arena and FIL (Feira Internacional de Lisboa), and is expecting more than 50.000 participants from all around the world.

On Febuary 4th, in Pateo da Gale, the opening event “Startups Go Global”, an introduction to Web Summit, was held – Paddy Cosgrave was present.

Why present this year’s investors at Web Summit?

One thing that was particularly interesting to me, was an advise that Paddy shared to all. In Web Summit’s last edition in Dublin, many startup founders were too focused on Peter Thiel. He was present as an investor and because of his well known story with Paypal & Facebook people blindly tried to talk to him and forgot about the other investors who were present.

What happened was that Peter Thiel only talked with a few, certainly because he studied the specific startups he would like to talk to. As a consequence people that haven’t talked with Peter were left very upset and probably also – taken into account the investment you have to make to be part of Web Summit – with a bad experience.

But “just because you fail, that doesn’t make you a failure”. And by this problem I thought it’s useful to interview as many investors who will be in Portugal during the Web Summit as possible, and help startups to faster identify which investors suits them.

Forward Partners

Forward Partners is a Venture Capital Platform, which means that as well as investing funds, they also provide the ‘partner companies’ which they invest in, with world class support through a team of operational experts. Forward Partners has built The Path Forward, a comprehensive, proven framework which they follow to guide each of their partner businesses through, taking them from a strong idea to a valuable business over the course of 12 months.

Forward Partners’ team is passionate about working with talented, visionary entrepreneurs who are on a mission to tackle challenges faced by consumers; it’s important that a great startup is lead by a strong leader with a clear vision and a comprehensive plan. They retain a close relationship with each partner following investment, particularly in the first years of the enterprise as they guide them through the challenges of starting up.

Focus On Equity Funding from £250k

With regards to funding, they focus on equity funding which allows their partner companies to focus on value creation. They invest £250,000 for each idea stage business and the stake acquired is very much dependent on the circumstances of the individual enterprise.

Two examples of startups they have invested are Appear Here and Hailo, more companies that received investment can be found here. Forward Partners invests in transactional business in the fashion, travel, healthcare, fintech and lifestyle sectors, at idea & seed stage.

The best way to contact Forward Partner is by making a personal connection. Some of the most impressive email approaches they receive are engaging because they don’t pitch at all in the first instance, instead they strike up engaging conversations regarding industry issues and eventually the pitch comes naturally.

The best way to stay tuned is via social media, it’s a great way of getting to know more about what Forward Partners is focused on at a given time and also is a good way for judging if there may be ‘common ground’.

Are you a startup?
If you have questions that you would like to ask investors, fill this form.

Are you an investor that will be at Web Summit 2016?
Leave your contact here and I will briefly get in touch.

Editor’s note: The first investor, Caixa Capital, was presented last week. You can read up on it here.

 

 

___________

Sharing is caring so please share this post. Thank you!