What a lunch with Northzone in NYC reminded me about the investors worth saying yes to.
Swung by Northzone's NYC office last week. Not for a board meeting or quarterly review. Just to catch up with PJ and the team.
Having lunch in their Union Square office and talking product roadmap over coffee instead of sweating through funding pitches reminded me how rare this is. Most founder-investor relationships are transactional at best.
The meeting that almost never happened
Twelve months ago, we were not technically fundraising, though we knew that to accelerate we'd eventually have to go and scale. Revenues were strong. We had done in four weeks what most Series A companies would have done in Year 1 in the old days.
We felt strong about where we were, and wanted to only work with the best investors to lead our seed. There was a short list of European and US funds, but when you get to Scandinavian-US funds, there was only one we believed would accelerate Filed to reach its goals: scaling a European engineering team while tackling the US as a land-and-expand market. Northzone was the only name on that list.
It was through a chance meeting between one of our advisors and Northzone that we met. Today we have the number one investor rooted in Sweden and the US in our corner.
They already knew the space
Talking with Jessica Schultz (Partner at Northzone), things felt different from the start. Instead of asking about TAM or competitive moats, Jessica and the team had already formed a deep thesis in tax technology and had done their homework on tax prep, the market, and on us as a team, including reference calls and meetings before our first sit-down.
Most VCs ask generic questions about go-to-market. Northzone asked about the regulatory challenges of building AI for tax compliance. They got it.
The cap table is a team
Just like the team in the office, the people on your cap table should be ones you trust and genuinely want in your corner. The team at Northzone are everything I look for in investors.
It's not just the latest round. I still turn to our lead investor in our pre-seed round, John Nordin at Analog Ventures, when I want to think through something difficult. And to Ali Partovi at Neo when I need a door open that feels impossible. "Hey Ali, can you introduce me to the CEO at Intuit?" was a real ask.
Know how your investors can help. Transparency builds trust, and trust is the foundation of great teamwork.
