Fuel Ventures is an investment fund that supports fintech, marketplaces, SaaS applications, and platforms. Based in London, the Foundy company has announced that they have secured a 1.25M dollar investment from Fuel Ventures. This year, Guider and Journee were two other startups that Fuel Ventures invested in.
The UK company has created a modern marketplace to help startups merge and expand their presence and offerings internationally. They will use the funds raised by the crowdfunding campaign to hire more account managers, marketers, and engineers, as they hope to modernize the M&A industry.
Foundy claims to make buying or selling a business up to 4x faster than traditional acquisition processes, which take 9 to 18 months, cost a lot of money, and often have delays.
How was Foundy born?
JP Lewin started Foundy after having problems selling his first company using the traditional sale process.
“My last company was an urban transport rental marketplace. After building it up to have over 30 staff, and winning contracts worth over seven figures, we finally sold the company, but it was over a year before anyone first contacted us about buying the company. The entire M&A (merger and acquisition) process was a nightmare.”
Lewin has experience doing things first hand and wants to create a marketplace that is easy to use for founders, investors, and buyers.
Foundy was created in the digital era, for small business founders to have access to the resources they need to complete big deals.
Online Marketplace
The Foundy platform helps make the acquisition process easy, safe, and secure for both buyers and sellers, as well as M&A advisors and investors.
SaaS, eCommerce, and Web 3 companies can access affordable buyer and investor networks, resources, and advisory services through the companies platform. This is to help them complete great exits for their investors, as well as expand into the UK market.
On Foundy, investors and buyers can find profiles of startups, and contact them right away.
How does it work?
The company says that each sellers profile is anonymous on the marketplace, and startups are able to decide which buyers and investors can see confidential information like financials.
On the platform, startups need to share basic financial information, and highlights of their company, to start conversations with potential buyers.
Company name aims to provide expert guides, podcasts about the exit process, and legal document templates.
Competitions
Foundy competes with MicroAcquire, Bits For Digits, and Flippa. The UK company claims that they are capitalizing on the first mover advantage in Europe, as this city has one of the biggest and most connected startup ecosystems in the world. Foundy is VC-backed and competing marketplace, and hopes to take the lead in Europe.
Microacquire works hard to maintain high quality listings on their marketplace, despite many of the businesses listed having closed down. Only 10% of companies that apply to be listed make it on the marketplace, but hundreds of businesses that have failed apply to be listed there. The company says that they want to take advantage of network effects by keeping their listings quality, and offer low pricing and full support throughout the process. More than 60% of the businesses listing on Microacquire will be closing their first business deal, and are interested in Microacquire’s “no deal, no fee” pricing structure, which is much lower than traditional brokerage fees.
Revenue model
The company Foundy makes money in the following ways:
- When a company is acquired, a fee is paid to the people who helped make the acquisition happen.
- Some people can buy a star subscription option.
- A contract value fee from third party professionals, like accountants and lawyers, that work with the clients of our startup seller.
Fuel Ventures is a managing partner company. Mark Pearson commented on the investment, saying that he was happy to support Foundy on their journey. Foundy will be a big part of the startup ecosystem because they help smaller company shareholders easily sell their shares, either completely or partially, which would encourage more people to both work and invest in startups.
