Approach

We are a sustainable change catalyst. TES solves the funding gap and provides skilled domain expertise

TES is bringing execution power and domain expertise when and where it is most needed. There is a large funding gap to move from friends and family towards a venture-backed venture. We solve for this by lowering the barrier in venture support via fast and smart investments up to $500k. This means easy contracting and no fixed menus unlike other alternatives offered by typical Venture Capital.

Way of working

1. Investment

Access to $50K - $250K seed investing opportunities on a deal-by-deal basis in carefully selected East African ventures through investment syndicates. TES curates attractive investing opportunities backed by professional research, due diligence, and legal advice whilst sharing transaction costs at much lower fees than typical VC funds.

2. Venture support

Angels are matched for their expertise and network to portfolio companies for advisory roles and consulting paid by ventures or grants, supporting the ventures alongside TES Venture builders.

3. Network & learning

TES provides coordination meetings with ventures and shares monthly knowledge notes with invested angels providing for cutting-edge insights into emerging market conditions and business models.

Criteria

Clear positive environmental or social impact.

Strong founders (team) with a commercially viable product, capable of growing in scale and efficiency.

Opportunity to leverage TES' network and expertise at the investee company.

$0.5-10M valuation / Post-revenue.

Investment process

TES team conducts high-level due diligence and writes up a brief investment and impact thesis.
---
We circulate the pitch deck that we co-create with the venture, and our investment thesis across the Angel Network, and collect feedback and questions.
---
In case of sufficient interest, the venture is invited to a live pitch session and Q&A session.
---
Detailed due diligence starts. Angels are given access to the data room, including TES summary findings and site visit report. Final terms and investment vehicle is determined.

We allow impact-driven founders to radicalize the playing field by solving the funding gap for early-stage ventures

The world is filled with uncertainty. But within that uncertainty there are innumerable opportunities to design game-changing businesses. Opportunities are there for the taking, but only if change-makers can get access to the right foundations.

TES invests in founders since they are the secret weapon towards systemic change. To nurture ventures, you need besides capital also expertise and a network. For years, TES has been successful in scaling up early stage (pre-series A up to Series B) companies through providing a mix of seed financing, business venture support, and network building through providing ventures with access to industry partners, investors, institutes and governments.

Way of Working

TES is bringing execution power and domain expertise when and where it is most needed. There is a large funding gap to move from friends and family towards a venture-backed venture. We solve for this by lowering the barrier in venture support via fast and smart investments up to $500k. This means easy contracting and no fixed menus unlike other alternatives offered by typical Venture Capital.

We are on the ground, don’t mind getting our hands dirty. It is everyone’s job to look continuously for improvements and new markets. Founders can focus on long-term growth while we provide talent, business and investment opportunities, and our extensive network in East Africa and Europe to maximize social, environmental, and economic impact.

We typically follow a 4-phased approach

1. Plan (c. 2 months)
Getting to know each other, working towards a strategy roadmap session to agree on support areas. We don't charge anything.

2. Pilot (c. 3-6 months)
Execute on a pilot project with our selected Venture Builder and your team. We work for a discounted fee. Our value add is a key criteria to continue our collaboration.

3. Program (c. 2 years)
We start our Venture Support program executing on selected projects with tangible results. We typically build up vested equity and/or work at discounted fee.

4. Passive (until exit)
As your company has scaled successfully, we take a passive role as advisor.

Investment

We typically invest between the Plan and Program phase through the TES Angel syndicate. TES Angel investors are invested in your mission and will proactively support the mission with expertise, network and resources. They have been in leadership positions at various start-ups and as such (s)he can support to founders proactively.

Sustainable system change requires collaboration. We build ecosystems and consortia to change old paradigms

Big challenges require many stakeholders to do things differently. We have seen that many stakeholders want to contribute to change, but encounter internal legacy barriers to change. TES has demonstrated experience in setting up and managing innovative consortia to drive system change.

Way of working

1. Connect stakeholders through a deep understanding of the domain and stakeholder incentives.

2. Accelerate transitions through best-practices and essential expert support.

3. Experiment by leveraging entrepreneurial and innovation methodologies, connecting bottom-up towards government and top-down towards industry systems.

4. Learn together by moving from paper to pilot projects and creating an agile, learning environment.

5. Fund the efforts, using match-funding from government, non-government & industry stakeholders closely aligned to tangible results and individual incentives.

The TES approach to ecosystem design has accelerated ecosystems across the world

Norway

18 companies, institutes & government bodies working together to accelerate digital manufacturing for the energy sectors.

Rotterdam

Pilot Project leads to highly successful consortium, engaging institutes, government and industry from aerospace to maritime.

East Africa

For Tesla, our portfolio company Kryha is building a sustainability platform, to trace Cobalt from Congo to the electric vehicle.