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How to Find Product/Market Fit Using Metrics
As seed-stage investors, we often invest in companies in search of product/market fit. While some founders have a clear strategy for working their way toward product/market fit, quite often, we see founders who are mystified by the concept and are not systematically working toward it. In this blog post, I share some thoughts on how to systematically work toward product/market fit and use metrics to assess progress. What Is Product/Market Fit? Product/market fit is the sweet spot where your product or service aligns perfectly with the needs and desires of your target market. It means that you’ve found the right
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What is a Good CLTV to CAC Ratio?
As a startup founder, growing your customer base cost-effectively is essential. One way to measure the efficiency of your customer acquisition efforts is by looking at the ratio of your customer lifetime value (CLTV) to your customer acquisition cost (CAC). In this blog, we will define CAC and CLTV and provide a general benchmark for a startup’s good CLTV to CAC ratio. We will also discuss the factors that can impact this ratio and provide tips for ensuring that your CLTV to CAC ratio is healthy. Understanding the CLTV to CAC ratio can help you make informed decisions about your
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RangeForce Raised $20 Million Series B to Boost Its Human Cyber Readiness Platform
Our Fund I portfolio company RangeForce announced the completion of $20 million in financing encompassing a Series B round. This funding will be used to fuel the expansion of the RangeForce human cyber readiness platform. Energy Impact Partners and Paladin Capital Group led the latest round and were joined by KPN Ventures, Lapa Capital Partners, and Lanx Capital, with participation from Cisco Investments. This funding supports our vision to equip the diverse modern workforce with comprehensive cybersecurity upskilling solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to defend against cyber-attacks. Our mission is urgent in light of the global shortage of
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In the Spotlight: Ready Player Me
Ready Player Me is a cross-game avatar platform for the builders, creators, and residents of the metaverse. Today, Ready Player Me is used by over 6,500 developers worldwide, and in autumn 2022, the company raised a $56 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz. But what has been the company’s journey to becoming the leading avatar platform? From hardware to the metaverse Ready Player Me was founded in 2014 by Timmo Tõke, Rainer Selvet, Kaspar Tiri, and Haver Järveoja. The company, also known as Wolf 3D, started in 3D scanning, first as a studio and later with its proprietary
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Trind Invests in Webel, the App that Brings Any Service to Your Doorstep
We are happy to announce our fourth investment by Fund II and the second investment into Spain: Webel. Webel is an app that brings any service to your doorstep. So far, everything is being brought to our homes: food, consumer goods… However, services (e.g., beauty) have not followed this path… yet. This is what Webel’s team found; since then, they have been building a marketplace that allows users to easily search, book and enjoy almost any service in the comfort of their homes. Webel was founded by Nacho, Carlos, Guillermo & Javier while at university. They suddenly realized that its
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Trind leads €2 million round of Barcelona-based nightlife technology company Xceed
Trind leads a €2 million investment round in Xceed, one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the live events scene, to grow Xceed’s intelligent event discovery platform. The funding round comes on top of an astonishing track record of two years of profitability and positive cash flow and will fuel the company’s growth and new market expansion across the EU in 2023. That has been driven by the fact that Xceed is unique in the industry as both a leading marketplace solution for end customers, i.e. event-goers, but also has one of the strongest software offerings for event organizers and
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In the Spotlight: Tandem
Tandem provides a language learning app where millions of people teach each other. It was launched in Berlin in 2015 by three friends on a mission to connect the world through languages. Tandem is a mobile app that brings together millions of language learners. Members of the community form one-on-one partnerships to teach each other their native languages via text, audio, and video chat. The tandem learning method has been developed by Tandem Fundazioa. On the Tandem App, the user will be shown members from all over the world who speak the language the user wants to learn and who
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First Investment from Fund II: Social eCommerce Company Yaga
We are proud to announce our first investment from our second fund, closed in September: Yaga, a female-founded social eCommerce company that allows people to buy and sell second-hand fashion. Launched in 2019 by Aune Aunapuu, the startup’s female co-founder and CEO, Yaga has quickly risen to become one of South Africa’s most popular online fashion platforms. Showing its ability to thrive throughout pandemics and economic downturns, it has grown to receive over 5 million visits per month. Over 5000 new items are listed on Yaga every day, with 750 000 items currently on sale just in South Africa. Yaga
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In the Spotlight: Jobilla
Jobilla provides a digital recruiting solution that helps you to find the right candidates in less time. Founded by Henri Nordström and Tommi Siro in 2015, their mission is to make digital recruiting as easy and effective as hiring a headhunter. Jobilla was founded by serial entrepreneurs. Starting with the very first business we established, finding good employees was always one of the biggest challenges. Whether we were trying to hire developers, sales managers, or customer service staff, recruitment was never as easy as it should have been. We either did not get good applicants at all or we got
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Trind VC raises new €55M fund to invest in startups with a consumer or community component in Europe
We are proud to announce closing our €55M second fund. We aim to invest in 30–40 startups with proven traction in four years. The fund is backed by institutional investors such as European Investment Fund, Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment), LHV Pension Funds, and Swedbank Investment Funds. “We were targeting to raise €50 million, but as we already have more commitments, we will go slightly above that in the second closing. Most of our LPs from Fund I joined Fund II, a sign of trust we truly appreciate. We are honored to have top-tier institutions from the region investing in the
