About

the fund

 

Trado Capital is an investment arm that has no rules. We can invest in companies of any size, any stage, in any industry, as long as our capital and expertise match with the target company’s needs. We differ from traditional VCs in many ways: we invest from our own balance sheet, we only invest in the sectors we truly understand and we do not have fixed exit time windows. This strategy has led to great results not just only for us as investors but also for the companies. We leave room for founders so they can focus on growth instead of investor management.

We think that the most important expertise we have gained is the real-life internationalization of the companies’ operations. Opening new markets from the absolute point zero and ramping them up to profitable units, and doing this over and over again, is something that many companies need but very few people have successfully done.

As we invest from our own balance sheet, it means that we have a genuine interest in our portfolio companies’ success. We don’t seek glory and promote only the best investments but we want to make sure, that every rock is turned to find a successful path for every portfolio company no matter if they want to become the local or global champion.

Portfolio

What kind of companies do we invest in?

Our special expertise are B2B SaaS companies and B2B2C marketplaces. 11 of our 17 investments are so far in these sectors, which has expanded our expertise and knowledge further.

We typically start our investment journey in the early stage, often before VCs. Our investment sizes vary between 50 000 EUR (very early stage) to 1 000 000 EUR (“A round postpone round”) per company. We do not push companies to take more funding than they require.

For who

Investment criteria

1. Operational growth. We believe in companies and founders that are able to grow without M&A. M&A may be a good add-on if a strategic one, but pure financial engineering and valuation multiple arbitrages are not where our expertise is in best use.

2. No for glory hunting. We invest in the companies and we expect the founders to focus on growth instead of self-promotion. There may be exceptions when this is necessary, but this is our base rule.

3. No gaming companies. The gaming industry is too far from our area of expertise which would inevitably take focus and energy from understanding what is happening in our core industries.

4. No device businesses. If there is a wire in the product of a company, we skip it. As we invest in early-stage and many times as only investors, device manufacturing is a too long and risky journey for us.