We want the founding entrepreneurs of the companies we invest in to be the main beneficiaries of their accelerated growth. That’s why we prefer to take minority positions. We want the minority stakes we hold to be significant and can be flexible with transaction structures – we can buy both newly-issued and existing shares.

Aside from the capital we contribute, by taking a seat on the investee company’s Board of Directors, we also participate in refining plans and major projects that make up the company’s overall strategy. Once the growth strategy is agreed, the founder/ entrepreneur and the management team are responsible for delivering it. We do not interfere with day-to-day operations.

We don’t have a preference for specific sectors. We are interested in businesses with strong growth potential and that can leverage technology to deliver better results (e.g. retail, consumer goods, medical services, financial services, niche manufacturing, etc.). We do however have a few limitations: we do not invest in the production and distribution of weapons, narcotics, spirits, or in companies that depend extensively on contracts with public authorities or on regulatory support.

Our investment ticket is between EUR 3 and 10 million, with an average ticket size of EUR 5-7 million. For attractive opportunities that meet our criteria we may decide to invest more than EUR 10 million or less than EUR 3 million. Our usual investment holding period is 3-7 years, which should be long enough to allow the company to reach the next level of development. Once that happens, we will seek to realise our investment through one of the usual methods: selling the entire business (alongside the founder entrepreneurs) to a strategic or financial investor, selling our stake through an initial public offering on the stock exchange, etc.

We have a set of basic criteria we follow when analysing investment opportunities: Ethics and culture First and foremost, we invest in the entrepreneurs who created the business. We therefore value highly the ethical and professional qualities of those we partner with. We invest in companies with healthy, meritocratic corporate cultures centred on honest work ethics. Fast growth leveraging clear competitive advantages We invest in businesses that have clear and proven competitive advantages, that have exhibited high rates of profitable growth in the past and are well positioned to maintain strong growth in the future. We look for companies in growing or maturing sectors, which leave ample room for organic growth as well as consolidation. Downside resilience We carefully analyse a company’s ability to withstand a worsening economic environment. We aim to invest in companies that can grow during tough times, when the cost of expansion is lower. Ambitious growth plans We finance that discontinuity moment that pushes an investee company to scale up in a relatively short time. We want the companies we invest in to have ambitious long-term growth objectives. By contributing capital and technical assistance, we want to help investee companies meet their objectives a few years earlier than would otherwise be possible without our support.