At Sie Catalyst, we measure our impact on how many founders manage to close their round, how much they raise and how many cheques have come through our network (which we summarised in our launch!). It’s also vital that founders have a rewarding experience and we’re proud of our NPS score of 100% from Catalyst III. We’re excited to share a few highlights and founder successes so far!
Highlights from our previous programs:
- Long-lasting relationships that extend beyond the program. Sie founders open up their networks to each other, co-attend events, share office space, introduce their angels, refer potential hires and the program creates the relationships that underpin these important exchanges.
- From Day 1, relevant and effective exposure to investors. We kick-off our programs with an in-person event where founders can meet one another and their mentors (investors). Founders present their business in one line and we saw two investments made as early on as our kick off day in our most recent program!
- Thorough VC match-making that leads to outcomes. We intentionally match founders with investors that would — and can — invest in their sector. Our mentors (investors) join to give back and support our founders early on but also to gain first look at the companies coming through Sie cohorts. Whilst the goal of the match is to share as much knowledge as possible, we have also seen several investments from the mentors or their respective funds directly into their mentee’s businesses. However, there is no direct obligation or expectation from mentors to invest.
- Highly attended investor showcase day. Our November showcase day attracted over 100 investors (an increase of 65% from 2021) indicating the high quality of companies coming through Sie cohorts. We’re glad to witness a growing appetite from investors to diversify their deal-flow and meet Sie founders.
- Sie Syndicate is now in operation. We started investing via our Syndicate in 2021 with our first investments into cohort businesses as well as outside of cohorts. Whilst it’s a standalone setup and it’s not guaranteed that we can syndicate all the investments from our cohorts, we will consider each opportunity from the program that is relevant to our network and thesis. You can read more and join our Syndicate here.
Founder Spotlight
It’s hard to choose a select group as there have been some remarkable stories and successes to emerge from our cohorts, also more recent fundraises that are still under wraps! So, we’ll try and scratch the surface here:
Megan Bingham Walker | Anansi | Cohort I
Megan (pictured) co-founder of Anansi (an embedded insurance platform for goods-in-transit, shippers’ interest and cargo) took part in our first cohort and raised a £1.5m Seed round led by Octopus Ventures. Read more here.
Mehak Mumtaz | iLoF | Cohort I
Mehak, co-founder of Microsoft-backed health-tech platform iLoF, joined our first cohort and went on to raise $5m (£4.1m) in July 2022. Read more here.
Trisha Goyal | Break the Love | Cohort I
Trisha, founder of Break the Love (the next-gen social sports platform), closed over $2.5 million in seed funding with a round led by Lake Nona Fund backed by leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners & the Tavistock Group. Read more here.
Elena Gross | KetoSwiss | Cohort II
Elena Gross, founder of KetoSwiss (bio-tech tackling migraines) joined our second cohort and in Nov 2022, secured $4m in pre-Series A funding to access the U.S. market and propel R&D. Read more here.
Ann Juliano | Muse | Cohort II
Ann — founder of Muse (a bespoke finance provider for SMEs) joined our second cohort. In August 2022, Ann raised a further £17m in debt financing to meet increasing demand and is now approaching her Series A fundraise. Read more.
Alexia & Margot De Broglie | YourJuno | Cohort II
Alexia & Margot, founders of financial literacy tool — YourJuno — joined our second cohort and raised £1.6m in Seed funding led by InReach Ventures. Notably, they also had predominantly female angel investors participating. Read more.
Yanwen Chen | PHINXT | Cohort III
Yanwen, co-founder of robotics startup, PHINXT joined our most recent cohort and raised £608,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed round in 2022. Read more.
Looking ahead
Our most recent cohort faced strong economic headwinds but despite this, 70% of the cohort closed their rounds with the remainder currently in the final stages. In total, our companies have raised £70M in capital over the past two years. We look forward to reflecting on more successes later this year!
We’re currently taking applications for Cohort IV until 28th July. If you’re a venture-backable tech business and you’re fundraising in the coming 6–12 months, read more about our program & application process here.
