TinySeed Has Raised It’s Second Early-Stage SaaS Fund, Totaling Over $25M
We’re excited to announce we’ve raised our second fund, totaling more than $25M, allowing us to invest in and support 100+ companies over the next three years across North and South America. Notable investors include Bloomberg Beta, Eric Ries, Patrick McKenzie, Steli Efti, and Rand Fishkin.
Amid a sea of “alternative” funding options, including a surge of revenue-based finance and shared earnings offerings, we’ve taken a different approach: focusing on early stage SaaS founders who want an alternative to the traditional “unicorn or bust” narrative.
“Our investment approach is unlike any we’ve seen among alternative funding options, and it resonates with founders who aren’t sure if they want to jump on the venture track, raise an angel round, be acquired, or grow a profitable company. We support all of those outcomes.”
“We expect a few of the successful TinySeed founders will go on to raise traditional venture capital, but most will not,” said TinySeed co-founder Rob Walling. “Our investment approach is unlike any we’ve seen among alternative funding options, and it resonates with founders who aren’t sure if they want to jump on the venture track, raise an angel round, be acquired, or grow a profitable company. We support all of those outcomes.”
This will be our first year of running two yearly batches of 15-20 companies through our year-long, remote accelerator that includes mentorship from SaaS luminaries like: Jason Fried, Hiten Shah, Laura Roeder, April Dunford, and more (full list here).
I love @tinyseedfund. It's been a record year of community, acceleration, & growth together. Excited to see what the next batch can do!#startups #scaleup #bootstrap
— Zachariah Moreno (he/him) (@Zach__Moreno) March 4, 2021
I’ve never had much interest in investors previously, but TinySeed is different. They’re all about growing a sane, healthy, profitable business. They share my goals and vision for Loadster, and we’re going to get there a lot faster.
— Andy Hawkes (@azhawkes) June 13, 2019
🎉Exactly 1️⃣ year ago, we joined @TinySeedFund and grew @ScrapingBee from $3k to $20k MRR while learning a ton!
— Pierre de Wulf (@PierreDeWulf) January 6, 2021
Lately I got asked often what was it really like to be in TinySeed?
Since batch 3 applications open soon, now is a good time to answer this question, 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/8Hk9OHPlPt
We are in the process of finalizing our third accelerator batch, pushing our portfolio north of 40 companies. Notable investments include SquadCast, Castos, SavvyCal, Summit, DocSketch, and ScrapingBee.
“Investor appetite was very strong despite the pandemic,” said TinySeed co-founder Einar Vollset. “We had interest from a broad range of investors, including from outside your typical venture investor circles, and are very pleased with the more than 5x increase in size from our Fund 1.”
Our investment thesis is that investing broadly into the earliest stages of SaaS — specifically, the set of B2B SaaS companies who are not necessarily reliant on traditional venture capital — can provide venture returns with less than venture risk. All while providing founders with a uniquely flexible option for early-stage funding and mentorship.
Performance of a few of the startups in our first fund; star indicates when they joined the program.
TinySeed Fund 2 is focused on companies based in North and South America, but we are about to start fundraising for funds dedicated to the European and Asia-Pacific markets. “We expect to start a European program in late 2021 or early 2022, with an Asian program to follow soon thereafter.”
