We're running regular portfolio get-togethers now in London, which you should have had invites to. Hopefully you can attend one of them soon. Thank you for your positive words and support.

We will have invested in around 65 companies by the end of our 3 year deployment period of this fund (which ends in Q1 2023). We invest ~$500k. That's not a "very" small ticket at pre-seed but you're right it's not the biggest. This is all transparently communicated on our website, so a small cheque of 400-500k should not have come as a surprise. Responses sometimes being slow to inbound are not a function of us doing ~60 investments but that we get >2,000 inbound a year and try and respond to everyone personally, rather than the only two alternative options: 1) don't respond at all to those we are not interested in, or 2) respond using a standard rejection template. Most funds we know do (2). When we get inbound we triage it. Those which fit our investment thesis closely we respond to first. Then a second tier of those which "maybe" are in our wheelhouse, followed by the third set who are definitely not. It's amazing how many startups submit decks having not read our website. If yours was not in our investment thesis, then it may have taken longer to get back to you. We also state this clearly on the submission form. With a pre/seed fund of only 2.5 people on the investment team, you can imagine that responding to all inbound takes time. We're sorry you felt we were very slow, but I would suggest that us investing in 60 companies from this fund and deploying a ~500k cheque, when we state that publicly on our website, is a reason to rate us 3 out of 5 !

Glad to hear you felt the process went well and it was a good experience, but sorry to hear that you thought the professionalism and due diligence was only 3/5. Without any colour it's hard for us to improve if you don't share specifics.

Would love to understand what would have changed your 4/5 across all dimensions, to a 5/5 across those ratings.

Obviously I'm unable to see which startup this is, as reviews are anonymous, but as far as I am aware as Founder Partner, we would never -or should never- reject a startup because 'we are too busy'. With up to 3,000 submissions a year and a team of two (me being one of them) who review inbound, it's a constant challenge to process inbound and respond to everyone. This is task we've set ourselves and sometimes failed at. While we have missed opportunities because we were overwhelmed with inbound (and during one period our Zapier was broken and we didn't realise for weeks, resulting in a vast backlog) we've never rejected a startup because "we're too busy". As an ex-Founder myself I understand the frustration of not getting a reply when you email an investor and can only apologise.

Ghosting was not intentional and we strive to always respond to every Founder. We never intentionally ignore founders. We're a small team (just 2 and 1/2 people) and that's out biggest challenge. In addition we've had COVID, a newborn and a house move between us. Earlier in the year we also dropped ball on some responses after CRM/zapier glitch. Not that any of those things are an excuse. I spent 20 years being a founder and was always frustrated when investors didn't respond. The truth is as a small fund we can't afford a larger team and that's a big frustration. We have to prioritise our portfolio founders first, then our inbound. We're raising a larger fund and the team will expand in 2022. Larger fund = more fees = more people. That will help our occasional leaky bucket, with the ~2000 inbound we have each year we try to respond to. Specific to this review, I remember the call actually because I was travelling and got cut off and it was a particularly stressful day but my baby brain can't remember which startup or founder it was (I cannot see who has left this review). In short I understand the frustration entirely and I'm sorry this was not a better experience.