FAQ

If you’re a passionate founder who has already launched a B2B Enterprise company and is currently looking for your first institutional VC investor then Scopus Ventures team may be right for you. Among early stage investors in the city, we are the only firm of scale that’s entirely focused on the United States and Israeli-based startups. With three partners, several venture partners, and a dedicated team of investment and operations professionals, we become your partner. We assist with all aspects of company building, including communications and marketing, recruiting, financial modeling, accounting and budgeting, and strategic development. Founders who are looking for truly meaningful support in getting their business from Seed to Series A need look no further than Scopus Ventures. Still not sure? We encourage you to perform your own due diligence to make sure we would be a great fit. We’d be more than happy to put you in touch with any of our portfolio companies so that you can learn about their experience working with us.

We are founder-driven which means we’re looking to support great entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, regardless of industry. We have a long track record of investing in a broad spectrum of B2B/Enterprise startups, and our network of operational experts spans virtually any industry you can think of.

We love nothing more than getting to know founders over time, trying to be helpful well before they’re raising money, and letting those relationships develop organically. In most cases, we have backed a partially or fully formed team with an initial product market fit. To get there you may want to be a product or technology partner who will help readjust the fit – domain expertise and will make your life so much easier. So, if you’ve got a great idea, you know someone with a great idea, or you’re a talented operator who wants to build something remarkable and need the team to support your dreams – don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

We primarily invest in pre-Seed and post-Seed rounds. We also save a significant percentage of our investable capital for follow-on rounds for our most promising companies. If you’re already fundraising for your Series A or Series B, we are probably not the right investor. Feel free to reach out, however, and we may be able to help you find a fit with some of our later-stage VC colleagues in the community.

In general, we focus exclusively on the US and Tel Aviv-based startups. We’ve been longtime believers that innovation can spark anywhere, but to successfully operate you might want to consider moving close to your US based clients. We’ve built our team with this hyper-local focus in mind, and we’ve been able to drive maximum impact for our companies in large part because we’re able to sit onsite with them and develop the deep partner relationships that ultimately help lead them to a successful Series A.

There are no hard and fast rules here, and the process will vary for each investment opportunity, but the overall structure of our investment process remains the same: We’ll do an initial review of the opportunity, followed by a first meeting with one or two members of our investment team. Then we’ll generally allocate two to four weeks of serious due diligence, including a couple of follow-up meetings with you and other members of your leadership team. If we’re serious about the opportunity, we’ll bring you in to meet and present to our full team. After tying up any loose ends, we’ll make our final decision. As a boutique investment firm, we take great pride in the diligence process we run for every founder we’re serious about. If we invest in you, then we’re going to be pouring in the resources to make sure you have the best shot of reaching your Series A. In order to navigate toward this milestone, we make sure to do our homework upfront to certify that we’re a good match.

We encourage founders to come with a well-prepared deck that shares the journey and the game plan. We would be delighted to hear your personal story, what made you devote the years ahead to solve the problem, how you’re doing that in an innovative and exciting way, and why you’re the right person to lead and execute to company.

We’re always on the hunt for innovative approaches to problems we didn’t even know existed (for example: centralized model that combines online ordering, data, and branding with high-quality room service for hotels, AI-powered recruitment, AI-based churn prediction, and SaaS application management tools for modern IT). Entrepreneurs who can identify unique, untapped angles in large markets devoid of technological advancement will get our attention in a heartbeat. Founders who are solving not just the problems of today, but anticipating the problems of tomorrow, and building solutions that will lead markets in new ways.

As very early-stage investors, many of our investment opportunities are presented well before there’s a clear business plan or path to profitability. So about 80% of our investment decision is based on our belief in the entrepreneur. To get to yes, we ask ourselves three key questions. The first is, “How big is the market opportunity. The second question is whether the founder has what it takes to build a great team. Finally, what is the “Go-To-Market” approach: clear understanding of the audience you’re selling to, channels, budgets, and price point to take over the market.

We’re not interested in making you jump through hoops to get to us. You can utilize our online submission page for your company. However, a direct referral will always be your best shot. You’re the primary salesperson of your own company, and having someone else vouch for you is an important way to stand out amongst the hundreds of opportunities we see each month. Hustle and networking are essential to startup success, so show us what you’ve got from that very first touchpoint. 

Our initial investment in a startup ranges from $500,000 to $1 million. We reserve the majority of our fund’s capital for the express purpose of deploying follow-on capital across our most promising investments, helping to usher them to a successful Series A and continuing to support them as they grow. 

We don’t have rigid rules around ownership stakes. The most important thing for us is having the opportunity to partner with the best founders who are building the most transformative companies. That said, we are a relatively low volume and concentrated shop. As our model is based around deploying significant hands-on resources to get our companies from Seed to Series A, we need to make sure that our ownership warrants the amount of time and energy that we’re going to pour into each company.

We don’t have set rules around this, but we prefer to take board seats if we can add value and if you’d like us there. Typically, we will take a board seat along with each investment we lead. In deals where we co-lead, we will often take a board observer position. Our goal is to be helpful and add value to our portfolio companies, so regardless of whether we hold a board seat or not, we will apply our holistic approach of partnering closely with each entrepreneur we back, building deep relationships as mentors and advisors.