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All other things equal, how much traction is enough for seed stage investment?

Venture Hacks emphasizes traction as a key component of an attractive seed-stage deal.  By this they mean the rates of change in profit, revenue, customers, or users; in that order of importance.  Can you provide acceptable ranges for those rates of change for an attractive seed investment?
Lateef Johnson asked this on July 29, 2010

1 Answer

Hi Lateef - sorry it's taken us a while to respond. Some quick thoughts:

I think Venture Hacks is right when talking about opportunities transitioning from Seed to Series A. For Seed, it's less about traction and more about the people behind the idea.  Team is always the most important factor in all of True's investments.
 
If your transitioning from Seed to Series A, we emphasis on team and look for user traction above all else. How many people has the idea attracted (this speaks to the value proposition and the teams ability to generate awareness) and what is the repeat usage rate (this will differ by industry but I want to see a high % here because early adopters should ultimately be your best users). At the Series A stage, we're considerably less worries about revenue and profit.  

Hope that helps.
August 05, 2010
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