Apr 20, 2021
Dear SaasCo is the new DSW Ventures blog series focused on founders and board members of start-ups and scale-ups. In the first edition, Keith Benson discusses the importance of being prepared for exit – even in early-stage companies. To: founder@saasco.co.uk Cc:... 
Feb 23, 2021
“This round is valued at £6m pre-money. That’s because the last round closed at £3m. Back then, it was just me. Now there are two of us.” Back to valuations and pricing. This post is a brief journey around some of the arguments about why venture and angel... 
Feb 16, 2021
After a stretch of fairly cold technical posts, we’re now turning to look at a more human issue – how hard should you, the investor, push your due diligence questioning? Most founders have a visionary streak. They see success as close at-hand, more so than the rest of... 
Jan 26, 2021
We have previously run through some of the principles involved in negotiating vesting provisions for founder shares and employee share options. In this post, we’re looking at some of the more detailed choices facing management and investors, about vesting and some... 
Dec 15, 2020
We focus a lot in this series on the tougher aspects of a venture investment. You might think this reflects deep negativity or anxiety. It is absolutely the opposite. Scope out any problems at the start. Then fix them. Move on. Succeed. Warranties are... 
Dec 1, 2020
Managers in a scale-up business need to be incentivised by having a meaningful stake in the company they run. Often they don’t. This is a big problem which may well be a serious long-term valuation drag. But it can be fixed… A recurring theme in our series is that... 