The University of Hamburg’s start-up VOIDS has set itself the task of creating a sustainable e-commerce ecosystem for all. It develops advanced technologies for e-commerce companies to proactively manage their future revenue growth and profitability. Co-founder Jannik Semmelhack recently reported on a successful pre-seed funding round and the lessons learned.
In April 2023, Jannik Semmelhack announced in our Startup Story that VOIDS aims to serve around 3,000 SME customers in the next few years. Recently, the two founders from the University of Hamburg were able to reach another important milestone: they raised 600,000 euros in a successful pre-seed financing round. They were joined by well-known investors, angels and founders, supported by Index Ventures, Lakestar and Creandum. Jannik has now shared his insights from the fundraising process:
- Ask other founders for fundraising insights as a shortcut: the cold-calling response rate was over 40 percent, and one of the founders asked is now an angel investor at VOIDS.
- Your network is your superpower: use second-level connections for warm introductions. VOIDS had a 30 per cent warm intro to first call conversion rate.
- Keep committed investors informed: VOIDS lost two high-profile investors because they could have been more transparent and provided more regular updates (once a week) on the progress of the round.
In the meantime, VOIDS has also expanded the team with industry experts, launched the first web app within 4 weeks and signed several +12-month contracts with new clients to take the next steps towards their vision:
Building a sustainable e-commerce ecosystem for all. “It’s about contributing to an e-commerce landscape where e-commerce D2C founders can profitably scale their brands while customers around the world benefit from a wider variety of products and a better shopping experience,” Jannik explained about this in a previous interview for our Startup Stories.
“Last but not least, I am very lucky to have Tobias Wandersleb as my co-founder and friend. Besides our great team, he is the engine behind our solutions and has guided me through the entire fundraising process,” Jannik gratefully concludes his post. But not without pointing out the freshly advertised positions.
For more information on the founding story of VOIDS, see our Startup Stories:
https://startupport.de/startup/voids/
