SaaStr Fund invests in 4-5 awesome SaaS start-ups a year, generally in the $0.1m to $2m ARR range.  

Before $10k MRR is usually a bit too early for us, and after $2m ARR or so is usually a bit late and Series A (although sometimes > $2m ARR can work if you are bootstrapped).

• We write first checks from $500k-$4000k.  Tiny checks are tough to do.  Checks larger than $4m generally require a co-investor of some form, but we can lead it.  We prefer to lead than follow.  Round sizes larger than $10m are tough for us to participate in.

• We prefer / are OK being the only investor in the round or even the company and do not require any social proof or any co-investors whatsoever.  We are also thrilled to be your first investor ever.  We make fewer, bigger, better bets.  

• We don’t do small checks.  We prefer to lead or co-lead seed and late seed rounds, 2-4 a year ideally.  We don’t write $50k-$250k checks and we’re not looking for a high volume of investments.  Rather, we aim for a very high success rate of a smaller number of concentrated investments.

• We prefer Outsiders + Outliers.  Folks that didn’t go to Those Schools, or Work at That Hot Tech Company.  The ones that did it on their own, that earned it, and got to 10+ Unaffiliated Customers on their own.

• We prefer founders from more diverse backgrounds.  We’ve invested in founders from 12+ countries and prefer founding teams with significant gender and cultural diversity.  We believe this builds stronger unicorns.

• We are pretty good investors.  Our investments are at 10x+ over history, and 5/6 of our first seed investments become unicorns and decacorns .  🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄.  So we don’t sweat the small stuff.  And we want you to go big, the way you think is right.

• We aren’t a great fit if you’ve already raised a ton of money.  It’s hard for us to invest if you’ve already raised much more than $3m-$4m.  Not impossible, but harder.

• We want the founder/CEO to be the CEO forever.  We want to invest in founder-CEOs than want to run their companies forever.  50% of our bet is there.  

• We only do B2B/B2D/SaaS.  I.e., only business software and APIs and tools that enable the building of software.  We don’t invest in consumer start-ups, or subscription services that have elements of recurring revenue but are not primarily software products.

• Pre-revenue is too early.  We can only invest if you have at least 10 Unaffiliated Customers, and ideally, $10k+ or more in MRR.

• We are happy to invest with startups based anywhere in the world (everything has flattened), but prefer folks that come to Bay Area at least a few times a year.  It does make it easier to meet, recruit, fundraise, partner, etc.  Even now.

 

It’s your company.  

When we invest, it’s up to you.  We hope you IPO and build a decacorn.  But wherever it takes us, as long as you do your best-est, we are there for you.  

How we add value:

• Find, attract and help build your first management team, especially VP of Sales and Marketing

• Promote your company across the SaaStr ecosystem (1m+ followers, #1 podcast in industry, mega-events for 50,000+)

• Find your next round investor for you (assuming you deliver the results).  If you hit your numbers, we will get you funded.  

• Be your mentor and advisor forever.  This is half the fun.  Then, the day comes when you know more about SaaS that we do, and that’s a good day.

• Be someone you can trust.  Sometimes, that may mean the only one to share the truth.  But always honestly, and to help you do great things.

 

What we ask for:

• Integrity + Honesty.  We expect tough times.  Just don’t hide anything.  We can take all the bad news, we can even lose all our money if need be, it’s part of the job.  We just ask for honesty and transparency.

• A True Commitment to Inclusion, Equality and Diversity.  We strongly prefer to invest in more diverse and inclusive teams.  If the team isn’t there yet, we ask you commit to getting there.

 

How to get funded by us:

• Cold emails are great/fine!  Several of our top investments were from cold emails, see examples here.  Ideally, include everything you can in the email.  Attach a deck if you are OK with that.  Avoid a Docsend if possible (we generally don’t open them ー sorry!!).  But please use Mixmax or other email trackers to see if we open it (we encourage it).  We don’t read every cold email, but we do try.  And most importantly, we tend to read every great cold email.  If your cold email was awesome and we didn’t open it, resend it a second time.  Email overload is real, especially in the Corona era.

• We only invest in founders that are a part of the SaaStr community.  That’s probably you if you got here :). But if you’ve never heard of SaaStr, never read a SaaStr post, heard our podcast, or been to one of our events ... there are probably better sources of capital.

• We don’t do “get to know you meetings” or coffee meetings before you are ready to raise.  When you are thinking of raising money, just let us know then!!  We can make an initial decision in 1 meeting and that week in some cases.  There aren’t layers of bureaucracy here.  There are no endless partner meetings.

• Get a warm intro from someone awesome is also great ー but not at all required. We don’t need warm intros, and in fact, a mediocre warm intro is worse than an awesome cold email.  We invest in Outliers + Outsiders, so we don’t expect you to have that magic rolodex yet.  But a warm intro from someone awesome we know also works ー just please include as much info as you can!