Our Search For Sie Ventures’ 5th Catalyst Program Cohort Members: What We’re Looking For 🔍
For the past four years, the Sie Ventures team, alongside our network of VCs and Angels, has spearheaded Catalyst, our flagship fundraising program for diverse founding teams. Collectively, Sie Founders have raised an impressive £114M. Now, we’re thrilled to introduce Catalyst V! Here’s a breakdown of our criteria and what to anticipate during the application process.
🚀 Launching Our Fifth Cohort
Today we launch applications for Sie’s fifth (!!) Catalyst Program, starting in September 2024! To date we have supported 46 companies through Sie’s Catalyst Program.
The Success Of Sie Founders…
🔥 Sie Ventures’ founders have collectively raised £114mn in venture capital!
🔥 90% of all Catalyst Program founders successfully raised!
⭐️ VCs & Sie Ventures’ Catalyst Program
Our Catalyst participants have received funding from funds such as Localglobe, General Catalyst, InReach, Breega, Ananda, Ascension, Octopus Ventures, Ada Ventures, Eka Ventures and many more. We’re incredibly proud of the achievements of our cohort companies and look forward to seeing how they continue to grow with this backing!
👀 What / Who Are We Looking For?
We’re often asked about our Program criteria and more specific details beyond:
▪️ You must be building a scalable business that is venture-backable and defensible.
▪️ Your business is launched or in active Beta.
▪️ Your founding team consists of at least one female co-founder.
▪️ Your product or service is tech-enabled through mobile or web, or has patentable technology.
▪ ️You will start raising your first or second institutional funding round.
▪️ Here we expand upon this and the leading quality that we look for in all founders that we work with!
🎯 Sie Ventures’ Focus
We’re looking at Sie Cohort companies with an investment lens because we also run a Syndicate but most importantly we are looking at supporting companies within sectors and stages where we can add the most value with our experience and extended networks.
With this in mind, we favour companies:
▪ ️️At pre-seed and seed stage ~ already raised angel/grant funding or boot-strapped and embarking on their first or second institutional fundraise.
▪ ️B2B or B2C ~ With our personal experience building companies in B2B we tend to be more helpful here but we have successfully supported many D2C founders through our cohorts as well. We will only bring on board companies that we believe we can truly help.
▪ ️Solving the world’s most pressing issues ~ we are particularly interested in companies that are changing the way we grow & manage our wealth, live healthier lives and foster a sustainable planet. However, there will be companies addressing universal problems outside of these parameters and we would love to hear from you.
▪ ️Venture-scalable ~ the “market size” is widely disputed but we’re looking for companies with the propensity to deliver huge returns with global ambitions. Often the reason we’ll decide not to invite a company to join our Catalyst Program is because of their propensity (or lack of) to reach this scale.
▪ ️️Traction ~ for us, this is proving you validated that there is sufficient customer demand, even if it’s a waiting list for you product, or a letter of intent from an enterprise customer.
▪ ️Diverse Founding team ~ Sie’s Catalyst Program is for diverse founding teams, individuals who are largely overlooked in the ecosystem, with a specific focus on women (co-) led businesses.
👉🏽 Our Due-Diligence Process
We receive over 1500 applications per year for our Catalyst Program, events and Syndicate and therefore, our programs are highly selective.
We focus primarily on:
▪ ️Founder: Why are you building this business? Will your motivations overcome the inevitable challenges ahead?
▪ ️Team: Why are you the team to build this business? And, how do you complement each other?
▪ ️️Impact: How does your business solve the world’s most pressing issues?
▪ ️IP & Defensibility: How defensible is your product?
▪ ️Business Model: How do you intend to make money and acquire your customers?
▪ ️Competition: How saturated is the market you’re operating in?
▪ ️Fundraising to date: Have you already started fundraising?
🚫 Our Non-Negotiable
Our application form invites founders to share more about the mechanics of their business and expand upon their fundraising plans. However, it’s through calls with the team that we look to identify the most important quality of the founders we support.
We call it the “founder obsession”.
As shared by our Founder Triin, in a feature for Maddyness —
“ This should be obvious — the “I’ll give it my everything until I succeed. There is no other way” and that’s the type of founder we love.”
🤝 Who Will You Be Meeting On The Catalyst Program?
In our Catalyst Program, we’ve had the privilege of supporting exceptional women, from founders who have skilfully managed the demands of raising newborns while securing investments to accomplished athletes who transitioned into entrepreneurship. Diversity is central to our values, and we enthusiastically encourage applications from mixed-gender teams. However, we do require at least one female founder to be part of the founding team.
The Program is managed by a team with extensive experience in both venture capital and operational roles. Our founders frequently tell us how much they appreciate our accessibility and support during their fundraising efforts — we’re right there alongside you as you navigate your institutional funding round.
You’ll connect with fellow founders who are on similar journeys, hailing from a diverse array of sectors and you will have access to our extended Venture Community (VCs and Angels who share their time through mentorship) and Experts in Residence who will support you during the the Catalyst Program.
🤩 Diversity At Sie Ventures
We are committed to supporting female founders from all walks of life. Nearly half of all shortlisted Catalyst companies’ founders identify as a person of colour, 59% are part of mixed gender teams and 41% are part of an all-female founding team.
✨ #SieTheFuture #BuildTheFuture
Looking ahead, we cannot wait to meet this year’s cohort and drive even more capital to diverse founding teams! If you feel this article resonates with you and you think you could benefit from joining us, apply via our website!
If you have any questions at all, please reach out to the team on hello@sie.ventures with ‘Sie Catalyst V’ as the subject. We look forward to reading your application and learning more about your business!
👉 We’re hosting our 2nd #SieTheFuture Office Hour on July 3rd — join us to speak to the Sie Team directly and hear from Catalyst Alumna on their experiences of fundraising with Sie.
🔗 Register Your Virtual Seat Here
🙏🏽 A Special Thank You To Our Supporters
Sie’s Catalyst Program has been thriving for three years, and we are immensely grateful to our brilliant supporters and partners — HSBC Innovation Banking, Marriott Harrison, and British Business Bank — whose support makes our Programs possible. We have thoroughly enjoyed our close collaboration over the years and look forward to accomplishing even more together in the future!
