Why $10,000 to $100,000
The check size most funds step over is the one that decides whether a company gets to exist.
Most of the capital in early-stage investing arrives in large pieces. A fund leads the round, sets the terms and takes most of the allocation. What remains is small, and the people who fill it are often treated as an afterthought. We think that remaining space holds some of the most useful money in a round, and it is where we choose to write our first checks.
Our first checks are $10,000 to $100,000, at pre-seed and seed. That is deliberately small. It is small enough that we never need to lead, never need to negotiate terms and never need a board seat to justify the position. It is large enough to matter to a company with a handful of people and a plan that runs a few months at a time.
Where a small check fits
A round at this stage is rarely one conversation. It is a sequence of commitments, and the first few are the hardest to get because nobody wants to be alone. A small check that commits early does something a large check cannot: it moves without waiting for anyone else. When a founder can say that money has already been wired, the next conversation gets shorter. We have watched this happen often enough that we now treat it as the main job of a first check. The capital matters, and the signal that someone has already decided matters at least as much.
Small checks also fit comfortably around a lead. We do not need the allocation a fund needs, so we are rarely the reason a round gets crowded, and we are happy to be the piece that closes it.
Speed and clarity
Because our checks are small, we can afford to decide quickly. We give an answer within two weeks of a call, and the answer is a clear yes or a clear no. A founder at seed is spending the scarcest thing they have, which is weeks, and a slow process from a small investor is a bad trade for everyone involved. A modest check delivered quickly, with a reason attached, is worth more to a founder at this stage than a larger one that arrives late.
Clarity cuts the other way too. When we pass, we say why in a few sentences. It is not always welcome and it is not always right, but it is more useful than silence.
What to expect from a small investor
Founders should expect a small investor to stay out of the way on governance and to show up on everything else. We do not ask for special terms, we do not take board seats, and the only information we want is a regular update. What we offer instead is time, introductions and a network built over years in private wealth management, which turns out to be useful well beyond finance. Introductions begin the week the wire lands, and we keep making them for as long as the company is standing.
A small check is a promise to be useful in proportion to the trust a founder extends by taking it. That is the whole idea, and it is why the number in the title is the number we chose.
