Pre-seed venture capital
Back of the Napkin Capital— zero to sixty.
We partner with founders at the very beginning — an idea, a sketch, a conviction — and help them go from a standstill to full speed.
It's all about who you know, and your business wants to know us.
About
We invest in the moment before the spreadsheet.
Back of the Napkin Capital specializes in the earliest, messiest, most exciting stage of company building — when an idea is still being scribbled out over coffee.
We write the first cheque. Often before there's a deck, sometimes before there's a co-founder. Our job is to take a founder with a real conviction and a rough sketch, and help them go from zero to sixty — first hire, first user, first round, first thousand customers.
We are operators who've done it ourselves. We know what an idea looks like before it's a company, because we've been on the other side of the table.
The gears
Zero to sixty,
one gear at a time.
We don't disappear after the wire. We shift gears with you — through the first hire, the first pivot, the first real customer, and the round that takes you to cruising speed.
Gear 01
0mph
An idea, scribbled
Gear 02
20mph
First hire, first user
Gear 03
40mph
Product, traction
Gear 04
60mph
Series A & beyond
§ Where we play
Sector-agnostic.
Founder-obsessed.
We follow conviction over category. That said, here's where we tend to find the most interesting napkins.
Consumer & Brand
Hospitality, food & beverage, lifestyle
Software & AI
Vertical SaaS, agents, dev tools
Marketplaces
Two-sided, services, B2B
Picks & Shovels
Boring businesses with great margins
"Every great company started as a doodle. Our job is to keep the pen moving until it looks like a business."