20.02.2024
ELEVEN HAS LAUNCHED A SECOND EDITION OF ITS EARLY-STAGE ENTREPRENEUR PROGRAM
Eleven Ventures, the Bulgarian equity fund supporting early-stage technology companies in Southeast Europe, announces the launch of the second edition of Eleven Alpha. The fund team and the selected entrepreneurs will work together on an individual plan for the development of the startup with one basic goal - reaching "product-market fit". Founders will gain access to the Eleven team's years of experience building startups, a wide network of contacts, and a community of like-minded people.
As part of the program, the fund will once again invest €300,000 for a 10% stake in each approved company, which comes with a pre-investment contract (publicly available and viewable by anyone), and just two months from the time of application to closing the deal.
The application process is simple and fast, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on growing their business. It consists of a short application form (a pitch deck is required), a meeting with Eleven's investment team and a meeting with the fund partners as a final step after the startup passes the pre-selection.
Who is Eleven Alpha for?
The Eleven Ventures team aims to be the earliest partner to technology entrepreneurs. Eleven Alpha is aimed at founders in the early stages of developing their business. This could mean they only have a bold idea and a rough prototype, or they already have their first paying customers. Eleven's four priority verticals (Fintech, Healthcare, Future of Work, Sustainable Food) remain in focus.
From alpha to beta
Once the deal is confirmed, founders get access to all of Eleven's company-building know-how and resources. The team will provide ongoing support and work personally with entrepreneurs to develop an individual company development plan to help them achieve product-market fit and the next stage of evolution. The program is divided into three parts:
"Discover" part, where entrepreneurs will be able to get to know their customers better, talk to them and understand their pains, needs, requirements. This is when they lay the foundations of their company.
The “Design” part where entrepreneurs refine the value they bring to customers, learn to build a product that customers want, design the business model and learn how to modify it, test and validate their hypotheses.
“Deliver” part, where the founders build a go-to-market strategy, start selling to their first customers, establish the foundations for growth and work on their strategy for the next round of funding.
What happened in the first edition of the program?
In search of the next "builders of the future" in the first edition of the program, the Eleven Ventures team reviewed over 450 applications from 25 countries. After a strict and difficult process, the fund selected 4 startup teams - the Bulgarian companies Flataway and TrueInsights, the Greek MyTeam and the Slovenian Perfeqt. During the program, the teams made significant progress in their development. One of the companies achieved a 10-fold increase in monthly revenue within a year, another increased its customer base 7-fold, and a third strategically changed its ideal customer profile and expanded its offering.
"It wasn't a formulaic program where there were different sessions for all the companies involved. It was extremely valuable to us that everything we went through in terms of sessions, workshops and meetings was highly tailored to our business and the work we do." shares Boris Pavlov, co-founder and CEO of FlatAway.
Ivaylo Simov, Managing Partner at Eleven, commented on Eleven Alpha: "For us, the first release of Eleven Alpha was a return to Eleven's roots. We searched for "builders of the future", met many and supported those who really excelled. Today, we're ready with version 2.0, which surpasses everything we've done in the last 11 years.”
