David Jarvis

Why I won't invest (2019)

David -

Between the pre-seed and seed rounds for Griffin we pitched nearly 200 different investors. These are some of their reasons for saying no.

  • It's too early[1]
  • *sound of investor ghosting*
  • Brexit
  • The market is too small
  • The market is huge, but only if you expand to the US, which we don't think you can do
  • The market is huge and has experienced massive growth but we feel there is no more growth to be had
  • The market has long-term commodity pricing dynamics so there is no profit to be made here
  • Your customers are too small and not enough of them will grow beyond that
  • You won't get a bank license
  • Your team doesn't have enough people with banking experience
  • We think the product is too simple
  • We think you will not be able to build a product
  • It will take you too long to build a product
  • We see strategic value here, we just want to wait until we can engage commercially [from a strategic investor]
  • We see strategic value here and we think this would be a good investment, but we're only investing in AI and blockchain companies right now [from a strategic investor]
  • You're not raising enough capital now - you need way more
  • You're raising too much capital now - you should try to do a smaller version of what you're doing
  • You will have to raise a lot of capital in the future and we're not sure you will be able to
  • You will have to raise a lot of capital in the future and that will dilute our ownership stake
  • We're not comfortable investing unless you as founders invest £[more money than we have]
  • It has taken you too long to raise this money
  • What are you talking to us for? You should raise with an ICO!
  • We're too small of a fund for this
  • We're too big of a fund for this
  • [vague excuse to cover for the fact that they are in between funds]
  • [honest statement that they are in between funds]
  • We only invest after revenue/product-market fit (from a seed fund)
  • You don't know how to sell this
  • We like to see an "explosive" sales pipeline
  • We don't invest [in the UK / in the EU / outside of the US]
  • We don't invest in firms that aren't EIS eligible out of preference
  • We don't invest in firms that aren't EIS eligible out of legal requirement
  • You have too many competitors
  • The biggest firms in your space aren't doing this, therefore it's not worth doing
  • These businesses aren't fundable
  • Your competitors are too well-funded
  • We don't understand what differentiates you from your competitors
  • Your competitors are executing badly now but they will start to execute better in the future
  • [summary of efficient markets hypothesis][2]
  • "The solution is somewhat derivative"
  • You don't have a competitive moat
  • We have a competitive investment in [competitor]
  • We have a competitive investment in [not a competitor]
  • We don't have the expertise to evaluate you
  • This is out of scope for us [from a fintech fund]
  • We don't have conviction about what the future of this space is

Honorable mentions: unreasonable conditions

  • We'll only consider investing if you can bring a second institutional investor to the table
  • We'll only invest if [a major strategic firm] takes a stake
  • [once we actually had a term sheet] We'll invest if you let us invest on the terms of your last round
  • [once we actually had a term sheet] We'll invest a very small check if you give us a 40% discount and a board seat

And a recommendation for aspirational VCs reading this:

[1]: This catch-all excuse could mean anything from "we don't invest at seed" to "we're busy watching Game of Thrones"
[2]: This was from a partner at a £500M VC fund