We work with business owners who are looking for a hands-on partner to help them scale and take some chips off the table.
Fireroad works with inspiring founders in your earliest days, primarily through pre-seed investment and hands-on guidance. Not sure if we're the right fit for you? Let's figure it out together.
Fireroad partners with individual and institutional investors who want to invest as a force for good in the world. Join us by participating in Fireroad Ventures, co-investing in direct deals, or sharing ownership in a company we hold at Fireroad Holdings.
Great people build great businesses. If you're an experienced leader, technologist, operator, etc, we're always looking for great people to join the Fireroad portfolio!
None of these categories fit you? We get it. You don’t like to be boxed in. We respect that.
Our
Investing Process
Our
Investing
Process
A bit more about how Fireroad Ventures makes investments.
- Join Fireroad on Wendal and set up an account for your company.
Your whole founding team and c-suite leaders should complete the Team Print Inventory, Venture Mind Index, and Accuracy Review. One person from your team should complete the Universal Getting to Know You, Financial Sections, and upload your most recent pitch deck. - Our team reviews our pipeline in Wendal 2x monthly.
We move forward with high-level research and diligence with about 25% of the Wendal applications. While we'll do most of this work based on the information in your Wendal profile, we may give you a call or email with some questions. If we know Fireroad is not a good fit, we'll let you know as soon as possible. - Our investment committee reviews initial-look reports.
From there, we assign a team member to lead the process of full diligence. Again, as soon as we know Fireroad is not a good fit, we'll let you know. - Each of our partners will talk with you.
At this point, our partners have looked at the problem-space, market opportunity, and basics of your venture, but you have likely only spoken with part of our team. Because our team is small and our investing decisions are unanimous, we make sure each of our partners has spoken with a founder before we dive into deeper diligence. These conversations are pretty casual. From here, the partner you're working most closely with will let you know if we'd like to move ahead into diligence. - We'll schedule a diligence call with your team.
In this call, we may have LPs from our fund or advisors who could listen for specific points of their expertise. We'll let you know the topics we'd like to cover ahead of time, and have time for you to ask us questions also. At this point, we'll also ask to review your data room. - We write a final investment memo.
Based on the diligence call, market research & analysis, and other inputs we will be working on a final investment memo that will be reviewed by our investment committee. We may have follow-up questions, want to review additional documents, and conduct some reference checks. - Investment committee reviews memos.
The committee meets monthly and reviews any pending investment memo. After that meeting, you can expect to hear a final yes or no, an amount we are committed to, and the next steps for closing our investment in coordination with other investors in your round.
Why Wendal?
As early-stage investors, we believe there is nothing more important to the long-term outcomes of the company than the founding team. The standard ways of meeting and getting to know founders within venture capital have, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired.
The culture of "warm introductions" is notoriously biased and exclusive. The ability of winsome personalities to "sell the vision" has little correlation with their ability to build and execute from 0-1.
Wendal offers our team data to both mitigate bias and identify leaders with the unique skills and mindsets that are essential in venture-building.
While it is not the only input we weigh when making investment decisions, Wendal is an important part of our process. And, teams that apply with Fireroad on Wendal have the opportunity to share their investment opportunity with other VCs who use the tool, making you efficient with your time.
... and who knows, you might learn something about yourself.
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