Delivering from Day One
More than just thorough due diligence: sometimes we help re-engineer the plan….
For DSW Ventures, due diligence is more than just the due diligence. We start delivering value to the business from Day One
For us due diligence is about:
- Understanding and structuring a business to make it investable – and crucially to make it successful
- Doing most due diligence ourselves: that way, we can feed any issues back into the process straight away - ideally fixing the problems.
- Getting the understanding to guide the company post-investment based on that direct understanding
…and then we negotiate the right deal
Negotiating the right deal goes way beyond agreeing a price
We’re empathetic to the founder teams and make sure they’re properly enfranchised and incentivised to succeed while balancing the need to get the right deal for our investors
Our Delivering from Day One approach includes negotiating on all aspects of the deal – including negotiating on the investee company’s behalf – on issues like shareholdings and IP ownership
Even if we’re not the biggest investor we’re always lead or co-lead investor – we’re great at pulling together a syndicate. We’re fast-moving and proactive. Other VCs like to follow us
We get governance and structures in place before completion and are often instrumental in finding the right non-executives to support the founder team
Completion of the first round is just the start of our job – we’re in it for the long haul
Delivering a great investment is just the start: our Delivering from Day One approach continues all the way through to an exit
We sit on the investee boards alongside our nominated non-executive chair. We’re in constant communication with founders and the chair
We have a lot to offer: from sector best-practice sharing, to commercial introductions, assistance in sourcing debt and grant funding and a whole lot else, all built on the solid understanding we formed when we undertook the initial due diligence
We find the follow-on funding for our best investees, not just (or even mainly) from our EIS investors, but more importantly from our strong network of VCs. We co-ordinate these follow-on rounds providing hands-on support to management
We stay involved all the way through to an exit, ensuring that the exit strategy is thought through from an early stage, and offering detailed support until our investors get their proceeds
Delivering from Day One