When preparing financial rounds, investors usually ask for cap tables (short version for “capitalization table”). Basically, this is a list or spreadsheet with an overview of all shareholders who have a participation on your company. Sounds easy? But in fact it isn’t, especially in later financing rounds. Why? Well, in the easiest case is the simple share distribution to founders and investors round by round, but in practice the deal structures are more complex. Typically, due to special rights and agreements, the allocation of equity shares deviates from voting rights and from money proceeds distributed after a cash event like an exit (e.g. a trade sale or an IPO). Very often it is complex enough to hire (and pay) external consultants and lawyers to reproduce the contractually fixed distribution and it is a frequent discussion point in due diligence processes on that way. Thus, it is worth paying some attention right from the beginning.

About 200 venture capitalists, family offices and business angels mingled with our corporate partners and startups during the fourth HHL SpinLab Investors Day.

With networking sessions, inspiring speeches and panels accompanied by top-notch startup pitches, the likeminded community enjoyed the event. Focusing on the topics “Investing with international venture capitals” and “How to force exits?” both investors and founders were able to discuss important aspects of the same topics from their perspectives.

In the last years we saw many speeches by top German politicians of different parties who agreed that Germany performs badly compared to the United States, Israel or China when it comes to Venture Capital, due to the identified lack of Later Stage investments.

The first HHL SpinLab Investors Day of the year took place at a location which probably provides the best view over Leipzig - at the Felix, just across from Augustusplatz - Startups and Investors met and engaged in several activities like Pitches and Speed Dating. The event was organized by the HHL and the SpinLab. Central Topics of this years Investor Day were Team Due Diligence and Brand Management.

The HHL SpinLab Investors Day in June 2019 took place at the location with the best view over Leipzig! At the Felix - just across Augustusplatz – 170 investors, partners and startups met and engaged in several activities like keynotes and panels on special venture capital (VC) know-how as well as startup pitches and speed dating. Central topics of this year’s Investor Day were Team Due Diligence and Brand Management as VC.

How to pitch a startup is a key skill for all founders, and something all founders need to practice constantly. On April 18th, 2018 we hosted our first ever HHL SpinLab Investors Day in the Leipzig Zoo.

Many startups all over the world have advisory boards for different reasons. However, research and practice-oriented studies on advisory boards can be rarely found. This fact motivated me to look closer at advisory boards in startups and to publish the following findings of my research.

Here in the SpinLab, you can imagine that we run into a lot of challenges that startups are having. These problems can have very extensive reaches and range from financing issues to overall construction of a basic business plan.

Three and a half years ago we brought SpinLab to life, and just recently we were awarded as one of the top 3 German startup accelerators in an independent study conducted by the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (RFH).

Other studies mention us as lighthouse and also we have been selected as one of the top 10 German business supporters by the German Council of European Enterprise Awards committee.