Solvable Syndicate

Y Combinator (YC) is one of the most well-known startup accelerators in the world. Since 20045, it has funded 5,000+ startups (such as e.g. Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit, Doordash, Instacart, and OpenAI), with a combined valuation of $600B. YC has put together a list of what they consider to be the most important, transformative, and fundamental advice for startups. Any founder will benefit from knowing these. Here's their pocket guide (and a few of our favorites): https://lnkd.in/ddVfBQAc

Many startup founders don't send regular investor updates. But this is a red flag to many investors, including Solvable Syndicate. In this little guide, we outline why and when you should send them (and to whom), how they could look like -- and we also give some helpful templates: https://lnkd.in/dsfp2QHh

What’s the most common mistake founders make when pitching to you? "Our round is closing in two weeks" in a first intro or contact e-mail…I get that you are creating a sense of urgency - but you would not get married after knowing someone for two weeks - so we don't invest if we don't have enough time to know you well." Meet Felix Leonhardt of Oyster Bay Management GmbH, which in 2024 looked at 1,700+ companies and invested in just 2. Read the full exciting profile here: https://lnkd.in/dmxZd5hc

💷 Congrats to Shiv Sivakumar and Dr. Guy Sandelowsky MBA of omnipetcare, who just appeared on Dragons Den on BBC One, where they successfully secured Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett as investors (£75,000 for 2.5% of the business). ❤️ Solvable Syndicate is a proud backer of Omni since last year. 👉 During Dragons Den, Deborah said: “I love it. I like you. I think you’ve been pretty faultless so far, in terms of how you’re approaching a new market. You are really impressive. Of course it ticks a lot of my boxes.” 👉 And Steven said: “I’ve come to learn in the Den that there are two central things that come to form my investment thesis. Which is, the products and how much I’m passionate about the space and can relate to the problem. Second one is the entrepreneurs. Because different entrepreneurs could have walked through this door, with the exact same product and I would have valued the business entirely differently, if i didn't think the two people in front of me were killers. I’ve come to learn from my dragons den investment that do exceptionally well, that the single most important factor has actually been are they killers? I think you guys are. So I have to try and invest in this business. I have to.” 🤩 We couldn't agree more! Make sure to follow (and shop) Omni here: https://lnkd.in/dEdp3CqQ Further info on the Dragons Den here: https://lnkd.in/dd4s_xQK 📸: BBC

We’re proud backers of Nilus, which brings affordable groceries to hundreds of thousands of people in LATAM while cutting food waste in the process 👇

Happy Holidays from the Solvable Syndicate team -- Daniel, Steve, and John! Reflecting on 2024, we've: 🧑🔬 Engaged with hundreds of founders 💰 Made 7 new investments backing founders in 🇦🇺, 🇸🇪, 🇩🇪, 🇺🇸, 🇦🇷, and 🇬🇧 📈 Grown to about 250 members 🌍 Attended events in 🇺🇸, 🇨🇭, 🇩🇪, 🇫🇮, 🇸🇪, 🇬🇧, 🇦🇪, etc -- from HackSummit, Anuga, TONIC Summit, The Drop, 🔥THE HEAT, and Gulfood Green, to Reducetarian Foundation's Summit, EIT Food, and Sweden Foodtech Big Meet, and more The biggest thanks to our engaged members, to the fantastic entrepreneurs we've had the privilege of backing, and to everyone else who've supported our journey so far. This was the first full year for Solvable Syndicate, and we look forward to growing our impact in 2025 and beyond! 🚀

💸 FoodHack just interviewed 25 AgriFood investors to put together a fantastic article: "60 AgriFood Solutions VCs want you to pitch them". One of the 25 investors interviewed was Solvable Syndicate's very own Steve Simitzis. He highlighted pet food, cultivated meat for B2B applications, and enabling technologies (such as e.g. purpose-built bioreactors, cell lines, bioprocess software). Other investors mentioned solutions such as: 🌾 Green Fertilizers 🥡 Sustainable Packaging ☀️ Climate Resilient Crops 🪴 Soil-Enriching Solutions 🧊 Cold Chain Optimization 🧁 Sugar Reduction Technologies 🍫 Coffee and Chocolate Alternatives 🧫 Molecular Farming and Plant Cell Culture 🛠️ Picks and Shovels for Food Processing and Food Safety Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eyySvBWa

Pork is an (almost) universally beloved product (€250B+ market!), but the farming and slaughter of 1.5B pigs per year results in massive negative impacts (incl. 800M tons of CO2e). The Raging Pig co develops fantastic alternatives to animal-sourced pork products such as sausage, and Solvable Syndicate are proud and thrilled to have joined The Raging Pig's seed round, and support them on their forward journey. Kind of a pig deal!

ClimateHack just put together a great overview of the '24 Climate Angel Syndicates to know', and yes, Solvable Syndicate was listed as one of them. In ClimateTech and FoodTech, angel investors (often active or exited founders and operators) make up a decent chunk of early stage funding activity. However, as a founder it can be hard to find angel investors that have expertise and interest in your specific vertical and geography. Syndicates make things a little bit more transparent -- if you're a founder working on solutions related to e.g. fungi, WineTech, alternative protein, and so on, then there are specialized syndicates focused on that! Here's the full overview: https://lnkd.in/eaz6XSTp And ff you want to meet some of these syndicates in person, then HackSummit (https://lnkd.in/e7KsacjC) in NYC in December is a good start. Use the code SOLVABLE20 to save 20% on your pass.

Will you be at The Drop or 🔥THE HEAT this week, and want to chat food/climate investments and trends? Then ping our Partner Daniel Skavén Ruben and let's meet up.