How we became the first EU startup to raise from these SEA investors

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In 2016, our company Aptoide became the first European startup to successfully raise funding from Gobi Partners and Golden Gate Ventures.

This is how we did it.

A bit of a background

Our company was founded in 2011 in Portugal as an alternative Android app store to Google Play. To date, we have more than 150 million users worldwide, 700,000 apps, and 4 billion downloads.

In early 2015, we reached profitability, a critical milestone, and decided to raise our Series A in Southeast Asia. After a full year, we announced a US$ 4 million round with the participation of Gobi Partners and Golden Gate Ventures.

Here are my top tips and lessons from leading that effort. I do hope these insights are somehow useful to other startups that are currently raising funds.

Show commitment to gain trust

When I spoke for the first time with local investors, most of them had never heard of us or invested outside SEA. For that reason, many passed up our offer. Some even said, “I like your business and traction, but I don’t even know anyone in Portugal that I can call to check on you.”

So we decided it was important to show how committed we were. To achieve that, we raised a bridge round from our seed investor (Portugal Ventures) to support the costs of opening offices in Singapore and Shenzhen. Of course, this wasn’t just about getting the trust of investors—it was part of our plan—but this risky action sent a strong message to our recent investors, and no doubt it helped us secure their signatures.

Always be ready to pitch, but not too aggressively

You never know when you’re going to meet the right investor, so you need to be ready all the time. This means being able to concisely describe your business and why the VC should care. Many people call this an elevator pitch, but you should actually treat it like a sharing effort instead of pure pitching.

That’s what happened to me when I met E.ventures by chance during lunch at the Lisbon Summit. Before I pitched, I asked politely, “Do you mind if I tell you about my startup? I don’t want to spoil your lunch…” (This was very important because VCs were bombarded by pitches and this was his lunch break.) Little did I know that he would ultimately become our lead investor in the round!

Tell your story right and short

VCs are extremely busy people (think of a five-year-old child’s attention spam), so when you’re reaching out, having a long pitch could destroy your chances. My advice is to use a maximum of three points: (1) what you do, (2) most impressive metrics (e.g. downloads, MAUs, revenue, retention, etc.), and (3) how much you are raising. I once worked with a renowned consulting firm and the rule there was: “Two bullets are too little. Four bullets are too much.”

Once you open the door, your pitch deck will become either your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s important to hit the key points quickly (in our deck, the main KPIs are on the first slide), tell a great story about your company, and share interesting observations from running the business. Be prepared to answer tough questions with confident answers and make sure you don’t have more than 10 slides to show (put supporting details in the backup slides instead).

Show me the value, not the money

You’ve heard this before but don’t be tempted to take money from a VC who’s offering nothing but cash. Do your own due diligence before requesting for VC meetings, as this could show that you believe there are synergies (even if it’s just going to Crunchbase and checking whether they invest in your vertical and their typical round/ticket).

Then, when you speak with VCs, it must be a two-way street, i.e. you should also ask about the value the VC is bringing to the table. Our company had limited experience in Asia, so we needed VCs with deep local market knowledge and strong connections to key stakeholders. Gobi Partners and Golden Gate Ventures proved they would be a good fit.

Investors invest in lines, not dots

All in all, let your startup do the talking