When you think of investor readiness, pitch decks, traction, and numbers usually come to mind. What often gets overlooked: Many structural decisions you make as early as the founding phase determine not only whether your startup is attractive to investors, but also whether it remains eligible for public funding. In this one-hour talk, Jan Jeske, Partner at neoteq ventures, speaks with Arne Wittern, Co-Founder and CEO at Coup, about his criteria as an early-stage investor and how to position yourself from the outset so that you are both: investor-ready and funding-eligible.
What to expect:
- What an early-stage investor looks for in pre-seed and seed teams
- Which structural decisions from day one convince investors and funding application reviewers
- How to set up your startup to be investor-ready and eligible for subsidies
Arne Wittern is Co-Founder and CEO of Coup, a digital funding consultancy specializing in the research allowance (Forschungszulage), which supports startups and high-growth companies in identifying and successfully applying for public funding.
Jan Jeske is Partner at neoteq ventures, an early-stage VC founded in Cologne in 2020 that supports founding teams from pre-seed to Series A across all technologies and industries, with a particular focus on the Rhine region. The team around founding partners Simon Schneider and B. J. Park has invested in around 15 startups so far, including Detechgene, OMMM, and Circuly.
