We are Founders investing in Founders, so you get investors who make an investment and stay involved, giving you the attention and support you need to succeed by guiding and helping you where and when you need it most.

If you are looking for funding and are exploring fundraising options, we offer something that’s very different from most traditional venture capital organizations.

Running a business is not cookie cutter and every business is unique. Every founder is unique and every marketplace is different. To be the most successful you need investors that can serve as seasoned mentors who understand those intricacies and speak to your particular needs and issues.

With us you get a seasoned entrepreneur mentor, who can give you personalized attention and get to know you and the nuances of your company along with personalized guidance. 

Almost anything in tech, with the exception of highly regulated industries and capital intensive markets. However, you must be doing real engineering of some kind. 

We specialize in supporting tech and tech-enabled companies. Startups selected for funding must have paying customers with a clear plan to a half-million dollars in revenue annually over the next 12 to 18 months.

We like to see at least 2 full-time founders working in the business. A single full-time founder is okay as long as there are other full-time employees or contractors on the team.

We focus solely on pre-seed and seed round businesses that are looking for funding along with fundraising support.

You likely have paying customers with clear visibility to a half a million dollars in revenue annually over the next 12 to 18 months and are already achieving initial revenue of $5K per month or +/-$100K in annual recurring revenue. We do not invest in startups with revenue over $2.5M in ARR. We do not work with pre-revenue companies at this time, unless you have an MVP in market with customer traction.

If you are in the idea or prototype stage, please visit our resources page for ways to achieve product market fit and land some paying customers before you apply.

Yes, although you have likely been self-funded and bootstrapped so far, or done a friends and family round, perhaps with a small amount of debt.

If you have raised, we like to see less than $750K in prior outside investments. We are here to help you get funded. You likely have a pitch deck, but it may not be very effective. That's okay. We are focused on assisting you with the tools to help you complete your raise.

Seed Round Capital provides hands on support which typically lasts anywhere from six months to two years. Our goal is to get you to your Series A or to $1M in ARR.

We offer a network of experienced entrepreneurs who serve as mentors, business operations trainers and subject matter experts in legal, HR, marketing, sales, and finance/accounting. Our mentors have founded multiple businesses with successful exits, so they know what it takes to run a thriving startup.

Our goal is to 1) invest in talented founders, 2) help startups secure funding and 3) help startups scale to $1 million plus in revenue, positioning them for continued growth.

Seed Round Capital's is not an accelerator. We are more like a startup development organization (SDO) and we operate similar to a venture studio or startup/tech studio, where we take a long term hands-on approach in helping founders fund and scale their business by providing funding support, management guidance and access to experts.

In comparison, most traditional accelerators are fixed-term, cohort-based (group learning), mentors without proven entrepreneurial success, and culminate in a graduation or “demo day.” A Seed Round Capital investment offers a different approach:

1. We support you as long as you need. There is no fixed term.
2. Each startup receives individual and personalized attention. We do not group you into cohorts.
3. You are assigned a personal mentor with proven entrepreneurial success. We do not rotate mentors.
4. You present to investors when you are ready, and once you receive funding we continue to support you through your Seed Round of funding or up to $1M+ in revenue.

In addition to funding, we provide a support network for fundraising and guidance. All mentors are serial and seasoned entrepreneurs and we look for companies that we would want to build ourselves. Our mentoring is designed with three goals in mind: 1) to provide you with someone in your corner, 2) to give you increased confidence in decision making and direction, and 3) to provide personal guidance to support your unique business. Benefits include:

FUNDRAISING GUIDANCE

• Pitch events to angels and venture capitalists
• Investor pitch presentation training
• Fundraising introductions to angels and venture capitalists
• Networking events with fellow founders

PROFESSIONAL COACHING

• Seasoned mentors provide coaching
• Additional access to mentors as needed
• Access to business experts for troubleshooting
• Individual attention rather than group learning

LEARNING EVENTS

• Monthly meetings with fellow founders
• Monthly workshops to optimize growth
• Training on specially formulated business methods for running your company
• Lunch & Learns - topical discussions

OPERATIONAL SUPPORT

• Access to experts in sales/marketing, recruiting, HR, legal, finance, accounting
• Quarterly Board of Advisors meeting
• Physical and virtual membership to The Cannon for founder + access to events and resources

MOVE FROM FRUSTRATION TO FREEDOM! APPLY NOW

No, but we typically invest $25K - $50K in the startups we mentor. We occasionally syndicate larger checks of $100k - $150k. We also make introductions and provide access to funding sources including angels and venture capital firms. Having us in your corner gives investors greater comfort but we cannot guarantee investment from external sources.

There is no cost to apply to our pitch event or to receive an investment from Seed Round Capital. If you want mentoring support or guidance on fundraising then we typically follow the industry standard Founder Institute advisor equity model (https://fi.co/fast), but we do not offer mentoring services until after we meet a few times to determine fit.

Assuming we both agree on the fit, then we base fees on time requirements and stage of your business. All startups accepted for mentoring agree to a small equity position, for mentoring and for mutual alignment in your long-term success. We work together to ensure you succeed long term and have the cash you require for growth.

No, we do not charge an additional fee or percentage of funds raised when we make introductions to our investor network.

The startups we work with typically use multiple methods of finding investors. We help facilitate the funding process by providing access to our growing number of angels and venture investment firms.

Some companies also utilize crowd funding platforms to raise funds. We support whichever method the startup chooses. If you choose to utilize a crowd funding platform, there are fees that the platform charges but we do not share in those fees.

Yes – you need to interact with peers who are sometimes the only people who can understand what you are encountering as a founder. Peers are well-suited to give you advice on day-to-day operations. We have monthly peer group meetings and also put together informal events with other Seed Round Capital startups in residence.

We will review your application and contact you for an initial call within two business days to determine if we are a good fit for one another. After all, this will be a long-term relationship. We will have some initial meetings to assess cultural fit and chemistry and define expectations. Either party can release an engagement if it is not a good fit.

All of our mentors are experienced entrepreneurs who have founded, run or successfully sold multi-million dollar businesses. All are former or current Entrepreneurs’ Organization members, an international association where entrepreneurs of seven to nine-figure businesses share business practices and hone their skills. Many have professional training in mentoring. We will match you with someone who is most closely aligned to your business and the challenges you are facing.

Not a problem as our meetings are virtual. If you are in Houston, TX we occasionally hold meeting at The Cannon Main Campus, which is located in west Houston. If you are based outside of Houston, we welcome you to visit us in Houston on occasion for in-person meetings and networking events.

Since all activities are conducted virtually and online we work with startups across the US and Canada. Startups in other Texas cities such as Austin, Dallas, San Antonio are also encouraged to apply.

We provide co-investment opportunities to accredited investors, angels and venture firms. Please visit our Investor page for more information on investment opportunities. Here are a few companies that we have in our investment portfolio.

Sign up here to join our investor email list and be notified about our monthly pitch event. 

Have you founded, lead or sold a company that was generating over $10M in revenue? Have you had professional training as a CEO coach? Do you have a passion for entrepreneurship and startups? As part of the monthly advising we offer a bi-monthly one-hour coaching/mentoring session to startup founders.

We are always looking for former entrepreneurs of eight and nine figure businesses to act as mentors and conduct up to two mentoring sessions a month. We find this appeals to mentors as they can use their fees toward angel investments in the startups they are mentoring.

Mentors can decide how many startup founders they want to coach. Also, we ask founders to be flexible on timing so mentors can easily fit mentoring sessions into their schedules.