What’s Quickers Venture?
Quickers Venture is the venture platform. Here selected startups from the world can apply for the 100% online Quickers Incubation Program (QIP) and accelerate innovative businesses. Within the platform, our company together with strongly selected investors help the foremost innovative Green, Tech, and Social early-stage startups
What is equity crowdfunding?
Equity crowdfunding is a mechanism that enables broad groups of investors to fund startup companies and small businesses in return for equity. Investors give money to a business and receive ownership of a small piece of that business. If the business succeeds, then its value goes up, as well as the value of a share in that business—the converse is also true.
What makes Quickers unique?
We have taken the best parts of venture capital, and the best parts of equity crowdfunding, to create something unique. Each investment in a start-up is made through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which can be marketed within the EU under the European Venture Capital Fund (EUVeca) Regulation. This way, although investors choose which start-up to invest in, they don’t technically invest directly, we do it for them through this SPV. Our start-ups get all the benefits of the contacts, experience, and advice that the most dedicated investors have to offer while having a single investor, Quickers Venture, at their cap table.
What is the Platform (La Plaza)?
  • For startups, the Platform (or as startups call it: "La Plaza") is a space where they can apply to the Quickers Incubation Program (QIP) to receive funding, IT support, networking and operational resources.
  • For selected investors, the platform is a space where they can apply to join our community and, once accepted, invest seamlessly from our curated deal flow. It is accessible via the web or our app. Investors apply on the Platform in order to join our community. Once accepted, our investors choose exactly which start-up they’d like to invest in and we take care of the entire process – market analysis, due diligence, terms negotiation, and dedicated vehicle creation, which is where they invest. For investors, this means easily diversifying their portfolio and investing seamlessly.
Our Platform takes the best out of equity crowdfunding platforms and venture funds. Just as VCs do, we take care of everything from due diligence to terms negotiation, vetting our highly selective deal flow. But, unlike other VCs, our model is open and flexible – investors choose exactly which start-up they want to back.
How do I access the Platform?
Our Platform is available on iOS or Android as a mobile app, and can also be accessed through our website. Click join or login at the top, right-hand corner of this page.
What exactly is the La Plaza?
La Plaza is the digital ecosystem that we have built in-house to help entrepreneurs in their full journey to success. Through our team and community, our Studio provides 360 engineering business design and operational resources. We advise on UX/UI, backend infrastructure, architecture, growth hacking, business development, design, HR, legal, product and tech…and much more!
What is the Advisory?
Our Advisory is that section of Quickers Venture dedicated to advising corporates in their digital transformations. This generally means working with corporates on partnerships with start-ups, or on acquisition. This is beneficial not just for corporates but for our start-ups too, who we can also support in their acquisition, or even IPO, as well as on late-stage funding rounds with those corporates. We do this because of our close links with corporates and to unlock opportunities both for them and our start-ups.
What’s the criteria to join our investor community?
Just accredited or qualified investors can join Quickers. As we are based in Europe, investors must fulfill their own country’s requirements in terms of accreditation, and the European requirements too.
We look for the best investors that match Startups criteria and needs; we take into consideration the investor’s ability to support, mentor or guide the startups in specific industries because they really need to help as Angels making the difference. A Quickers Investor is:
  • A successful individual with strong interest and capability in making private equity investments
  • A trusted, honest, and respected member of our business community
  • A contributor of time, wisdom and expertise to our funded companies and soon-to-be-funded companies
  • A person who enjoys building relationships with other members and companies we fund
  • A person who believes in building Quickers entrepreneur community through charitable and social activities
What is the investment process for investors?
  1. Sign Up on Quickers.com
  2. Fulfill your Investor Information and apply
  3. If you meet our investor and community criteria, you will gain privileged access to Quickers platform where investment opportunities are available for you
  4. Select your best investment and commit. Once you have committed an amount to invest, we pool it together with Quickers and other investors behind a common vehicle.
  5. We monitor the start-up and help it grow thanks to the guidance of our Studio and network– including operational support, connections, and business development. Furthermore, our Advisory services facilitate follow on rounds and acquisition.
  6. We match investors and start-ups with common interests and complementary skills and connections.
How does Quickers manages the investment process for investors?
Our process is fully digitalized, from filling in their KYC (Know Your Customer) to sign all documents electronically. The platform allows you to keep your portfolio documentation in one place and follow the reporting of the investments
We take care of all the start-up sourcing and analysis, and complete due diligences in all areas including business, technology, legal and human. Then we negotiate all the terms such as board positions, liquidation rights, anti-dilution rights, pre-emption rights and paripassu (which are normally inaccessible to individual investors).
What is our investment Deal Criteria?
We invest in European early-stage and specifically, in Green, Tech and Social start-ups. Read more about our investment thesis here, and what we look for in a team of founders, here.
What are the different ways to invest with Quickers?
There are 2 different ways to invest with Quickers:
  1. Private Equity – Fund Companies in exchange for shares
    • Select from our pre-vetted Ventures and invest into a dedicated vehicle to gain proprietary rights on the company
    • Read the general information and details of the Startup
    • Read professional due diligence material for each company before committing
    • Invest seamlessly online through a quick, fully digitalized process
  2. Private Debt – Fund the projects of the companies in exchange for interest rate
    • Select from our pre-vetted Projects and invest in a dedicated contract with an interest rate and time span
    • Read the general information and details of the Startup
    • Read professional due diligence material for each company before committing
    • Invest seamlessly online through a quick, fully digitalized process
What are our fees for investors?
We have fees in order to cover our activity and all of the extensive due diligence, legal and analytical work that we complete. We don’t take any fees from start-ups unlike many equity crowdfunding platforms do, and that is part of why entrepreneurs like us. Legal Fees:
  • Free fees for legal, entry and exit are taken care of by Quickers
Entry Fees:
  • 2% for a commitment > €150k
  • 3% for a commitment between €50k and €150k
  • 4% for a commitment below €50k
Management Fees:
  • 2% per year for 4 years if an exit has not occurred
Performance Fees:
  • Performance fees of 20% on the capital gains.
How much does Quickers usually invest per company?
We typically invest between €50k and €300k
Does Quickers, invests too?
Yes, Quickers participates in every round. We fully believe in our start-ups and have a vested interest to make sure we’ve secured a fantastic opportunity for us and our investors partners.
How do Quickers find start-ups?
We are voraciously proactive in sourcing start-ups, using a mixture of traditional and innovative means to find them. We receive applications via our Platform for analysis, recommendations from our community (investors, entrepreneurs and more) for start-ups we should check out and have also fostered close partnerships with tech programmes, accelerators and communities to keep a finger on the pulse of exciting new projects. And, of course, we use the old-school method – networking, setting up meetings and heading across Europe to physically search for the best.
What’s our selection process?
We see around 500 start-ups every year – so we have to be picky about who we agree to fund as we select less than 1%!. We look first and foremost at the team exceptional entrepreneurs who we trust and with whom we share the same values. Then we carefully review every aspect of their business, completing tech, financial, IP, and legal due diligence. To do this, we leverage the Quickers team, the Quickers investors and entrepreneurs, and the very best external experts. What’s more, thanks to our in-house technical team, we are also able to complete all of our own technical due diligence – we get right to the core of a start-up’s product and technology.
How can investors track and follow their investments?
With our Platform, investors track and follow their investment 24h/7d, receiving reports on the progress of their start-up every quarter. We also organize regular events with our start-ups and entrepreneurs and keep our investors in the loop with all the top events in the ecosystem.
Why do we pool investors in an SPV?
When investors decide to invest in a start-up, we’ll pool their funds with the other investors’ funds in an investment vehicle. So, they won’t technically invest directly in the start-up, we do it for them. We do it this way to avoid making the cap table of our investments too crowded and enable investors to benefit from our negotiated terms. As such, investors don’t have to interact with the start-up they invest in if they don’t want to. However, we do our best to match investors and start-ups along with common interests, leveraging complementary skills and connections.
How does interaction between investors and start-ups happen?
Our main objective is to empower exceptional entrepreneurs to succeed, and we know that matching them with the best investors out there is crucial in achieving that. Thus, we encourage our investors to be mentors and to support the start-up they invest in, but it is not compulsory. Our investors can be involved as much or as little as they want.
When can investors withdraw their funds?
Once investors commit, they’ll be involved until the exit, which can be the acquisition of the company, the buy-out of shares in the following round, or IPO. That’s the magic of investment, investing in start-ups is a risky business and sometimes returns are long term. We produce returns on the investment when the start-up exits. Investors will be able to withdraw their funds then. However, it’s important to bear in mind that this may take time, and it isn’t guaranteed. Nevertheless, we favor exits in a 4 to 5-year timeframe.
Can investors change the term sheet if they don’t like it?
We negotiate our term sheets with the start-ups before making them available for investment on our platform, so it’s not possible to change them. However, we ensure that we negotiate our terms to make them favorable to both start-ups and investors, including board seats, liquidation rights, pari-passu, and more.