Tl;dr
Pitch us directly, via a Magma Memo at magmapartners.com/apply. At an early stage, we are investing in people, the founders, and one of the main skills a founder must have is the ability to raise money. If you're already outsourcing it to a 3rd party at an early stage, it starts to raise questions about why the founder wasn't able to start the process themselves.
Why founders should pitch us directly via a Magma Memo
We get lots of inbound emails from consultants that startups have hired to help them raise funds. This is generally a negative signal for us until at least series A, and probably still a negative signal nonetheless.
Why? At an early stage, we are investing in people, the founders, and one of the main skills a founder must have is the ability to raise money. If you're already outsourcing it to a 3rd party at an early stage, it starts to raise questions about why the founder wasn't able to start the process themselves.
In Latin America, sometimes this is because founders don't know any better or don't feel like they're connected to the ecosystem, and some underestimated founders think the best way to get on the radar is via a banker or consultant, so it's not always a true negative signal, but most of the time it is.
In our case, that's why we created the Magma Memo for founders so they can get direct access to our investment team. Around 30% of all of our investments come in cold from our Magma Memo online form, including big successes like Albo.
If you're a banker or consultant reading this, please don’t be offended. If you want to do your job the best for the startup you're working with, the absolute best way is to have them fill out a Magma Memo, and our investment team will always review and respond, generally within a few days. If you want to make sure we see it, shoot us an email to highlight the company with why you think they are special and we should be looking at them, but a Magma Memo is more than enough to get on our radar.
We get lots of inbound emails from bankers and consultants asking for meetings to introduce companies. We basically never take those. If you're a consultant and insist on emailing us directly and not creating a Magma Memo, please be sure to include a deck, the key metrics of the company so we can get an idea of traction, why you think this is a company that fits our thesis and ideally an idea of how much money they are looking to raise.
This way, we can all get best outcomes for founders, their consultants, and Magma, and hopefully fund more companies.
If you're looking to get in touch with Magma's investment team, please create a Magma Memo and we will be in contact with feedback.
