Over the past seven years we have delivered 300+ sessions with nearly 4.500 people through Scale Up! This month, we are rolling out the latest version, Scale Up MENA! and Scale Up Africa Rising! (launching in Q1 ’26). Here are the first observations from running the next generation of Scale Up!
It was one of the most intense, exhilarating and engaging Scale Up! sessions we’ve run in Norway (and we’ve run 60+ to date). The 30+ participants were highly capable. Angel investors, accelerator managers, ecosystem builders, founders, early-stage investors; all coming together to work on the ‘scaling up’ part of the ecosystem.
“Are you ready to scale?”, we asked, “do you have what it takes to scale from Bergen, Norway to the world?”, we challenges them. And they stepped up – big time, scaling five tech companies across energy, health, AI and seafood, ultimately ending up with a string of highly successful M&A exit transactions – and a string of zoo animals along the way.
Here are the top differences we observed in the new version of Scale Up! this week.
From financing to all round founder leadership and scaling development
The single biggest difference is the need for world class leadership and team collaboration. The moment the CEO steps back, the team steps down. The moment the Investor Relations Manager zoom out, the investor pipeline dries up in minutes. Leadership, more than ever, matters.
Got scale up leadership?
From equity to value
Previous generations of Scale Up! have largely been equity focused. Now, suddenly, ARR, revenue, revenue growth, margin expansion, building out the sales organization and revenue velocity matter. But beware of the famous year 10 hockey stick!
Look, year 10!
From investor landscape to commercial markets
With 35 markets to choose from, teams need to carefully select their beachhead and growth markets.
From linear to multi-level complexity
Five team members, each with a unique role, responsibility, KPIs, cards, boards and management dashboard.
is your workflow ready to scale?
Why it matters?
Globally, countries are competing on entreprenurship. But too often, the focus is on top-of-the-funnel, early-stage entreprenurship. Incubators filled, not IPO’s realized is often the metric of success. We developed Scale Up! to support more founders, innovation agencies, accelerators, ecosystems and countries in their efforts to scale, to scale up!
To date, nearly 4.500 people across 50 countries and 300+ programs have been through Scale Up! Globally, 50+ people are trained and certified to deliver Scale Up! programs. This month, we are training another 40 future facilitators.
This month, we are also rolling out Scale Up MENA! (from idea to exit in the Middle East) and getting ready to launch Scale Up Africa Rising! (from idea to exit in Africa). Next year, we are working on another two new outlines…..
Tomorrow, we’re off to Saudi Arabia and Dubai, where we will be running five Scale Up MENA! Masterclasses.
A few weeks ago we published “Who attends Scale Up!?” It hit 5,000 views across our platforms in days.
Then someone asked: “Great, but who actually buys Scale Up!?”
Good question. Here’s Part II.
Start With Problems, Not Products
First, the harsh truth: nobody cares about your solution. Even less about your product.
If you’re out there pitching Scale Up!, expect zero uptake.
What people care about:
· “How can we solve our top challenges?”
· “Who can help us solve our biggest problems?”
Over the years, we’ve watched Strategy Tools partners get certified on Scale Up!, excited, ready to sell. They pitch it as a product. Few succeed.
Instead: become a master of problem understanding. Develop deep curiosity about your customers’ challenges. Build empathy with their top priorities.
If the client is a national innovation agency, what keeps them up at night? If it’s a business angel network, what are they wrestling with? Attracting new members (recruitment)? Getting angels invested faster (training)? Moving angels off the bench into deals (process)? Seeing portfolio companies hit breakout velocity (growth support)?
Only when you deeply understand the problem can you start developing the solution - and see where Scale Up! fits in.
Five Problems Scale Up! Solves
Looking back at 8 years and 4,000+ participants—founders, investors, innovation agencies—five key problems stand out:
1. Knowledge Gap
Target audience has limited knowledge around equity financing. This is the challenge for 70% of participants.
First-time founders in MENA. Pre-seed founders in Africa. Ecosystem developers in the Nordics. They need the building blocks. Nothing fancy. Just the basics.
The question: How can we learn more about equity financing—in a new, engaging format?
2. Fundraising Readiness
Founders need to get investor-ready and close their round. Whether they’re in a European accelerator or an Egyptian investment readiness program, these founders are laser-focused on fundraising.
The question: How can we best prepare founders for their upcoming funding rounds?
3. Late-Stage Growth
Many participants understand early-stage well but struggle with later stages. Series A and beyond. Complex term sheets. Outcome analysis. Exit paths. Partial secondaries. IPO transactions.
Senior bankers in Europe. Global consultants. Late-stage founders in MENA. They’re ready to dive deep into Series B complexity and IPO roadmaps.
The question: How can we help people master the later stages, from Series A to successful exit?
4. Mastery
Fund-of-funds. VC firms. Senior accelerator staff. Experienced angels. Family offices.
These players have solid fundamentals. Strong grasp of early-stage challenges. But they want more. They seek mastery. They want to feel deep confidence throughout the entire journey.
Experienced VCs. Investment directors. Professional allocators. People investing daily who want to level up.
The question: How can your top people build and expand their skills in entrepreneurial finance and growth strategy to elite levels?
5. Shared Team Understanding
The newest challenge: team alignment. Building shared understanding. Team development in the investment space.
Family offices. Consulting firms. Corporate innovation teams. Innovation clusters. Ecosystem developers. Capital coaches.
They all need joint, collective understanding of equity financing, growth strategy, and exit readiness.
The question: How can 50+ ecosystem developers develop a strong shared language and common understanding of the founder’s journey—while having a great time together?
________________________________________
So, start with the challenges. Deeply understand the problems you aim to solve.
Then move to Part II:
Who Are The Buyers?
1. Innovation Agencies (IA)
Tasked with developing national or regional startup ecosystems. Usually publicly funded with large mandates. They fund programs, support accelerators, offer grants and early-stage financing.
They balance ecosystem development with financing solutions. Most have clear ecosystem mandates and a long list of challenges Scale Up! addresses perfectly.
2. Entrepreneurship Development Organizations (EDO)
Tasked with large-scale capacity building and ecosystem development. These organizations have extensive development mandates, often multi-year horizons.
Usually not investing directly—they support development work. Often focused on emerging markets and emerging ecosystems, serving large founder populations while developing accelerators, incubators, angel networks, and ecosystem initiatives.
Examples:
EBRD Star Venture (Europe, emerging markets)
GIZ (Germany, global)
Swiss Entrepreneurship Program (selected emerging markets)
United Nations YECO (global south)
3. Investment Organizations (IO)
Closely tied to development organizations, with one major difference: they invest. Direct mandates. Indirect mandates. Sometimes they’re foundations seeking ecosystem impact, capacity development, and financial returns. Other times they’re financially oriented, primarily seeking returns.
Examples:
2X Global
VCs developing outcome analysis, Cape Town, 2023
4. Entrepreneurship Network Organizations (ENO)
Membership-based or community-based. Some charge fees, others don’t. Most have member lists, active community channels, regular events and programs.
Budgets can be challenging, but these organizations hold highly trusted positions in their ecosystems. Large communities of highly engaged members. When they host Scale Up!, people show up ready to work.
5. Ministries & National Development Organizations (M+NDO)
Anchored in ambitious national strategies. Bold mandates to drive national entrepreneurship at scale. Different from innovation agencies—bigger aspirations, bolder ambitions.
Often linked to national visions and large-scale programs. Funding big initiatives, usually in collaboration with partner organizations.
Well-known to most, but with very different business models.
First group: non-profit, development mandate, significant government funding. Second group: strong corporate partnerships, maybe 100% corporate funding. Third group: fully commercial, funding-for-equity model, long-term success tied to portfolio performance.
Accelerators are a perfect fit for Scale Up!—often tied to longer, more extensive investor readiness modules. We run 3-day, 5-day, 30-day, and 90-day programs.
Angels celebrating their Decacorn portfolio founders, Egypt 2023
9. Family Offices (FO)
Seems unexpected, but investment teams at family offices e big Scale Up! fans. Often using it as an anchor in larger collaborations.
One family office took their entire investment team for a multi-day deep dive. Highlighted multiple relevant topics for further work.
Looking ahead, we’d love to see many more.
Examples:
European family office investing in emerging markets
Norwegian family office investing in global startups and funds
10. National Fund-of-Funds (FoF)
Similar to organizations listed above, with one key difference: they hold vast portfolios. Direct investments, plus indirect via fund investments.
This double investing role exposes them to much larger portfolios than any regular fund.
Perfect mandate between ecosystem development, national development, and financial returns. Scale Up! can be a superb support—even an accelerant—across the startup portfolio. Ideally structured as part of a larger program engagement.
Examples:
Norwegian state national fund-of-funds
11. VC Firms (VC)
Should be a superb fit and active buyers. But few have dedicated budgets for portfolio development outside their own teams.
With 7,000 innovation clusters globally, they’re perfectly positioned to support entrepreneurship development.
In Norway, hundreds of cluster leaders have been through Scale Up!—making clusters more entrepreneurial-minded, introducing them to equity financing, cap tables, and investor landscapes.
Examples:
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (Canada)
NCE Seafood Innovation (Norway)
GCE Ocean (Norway)
National cluster program (Norway)
Custom made Scale Up! GCE Ocean Cluster, 2019
15. Consulting Firms (Cons)
Many consulting firms offer services around growth strategy, startup financing, and capital strategy. Many come to Strategy Tools for their own development.
Over the years, we’ve worked with professional services firms and advisory firms on Scale Up!, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and investor readiness.
We realized while writing this: we’ve never completed a program with CVC units. Many conversations. None have landed.
We’ll change that in 2026.
CVC units are an obvious fit with Scale Up!
17. Corporate Innovation Teams (InnoT)
Running corporate innovation teams through Scale Up! is always fun. In some ways, it’s entirely new territory for them. Yet they appreciate how much there is to learn: equity finance, cap tables, valuation methods, exit paths, deal structures.
Examples:
Aker Solutions Innovation team
18. Banks (BANK)
We love working with banks on Scale Up! See potential for many more.
Every bank with any service for founders and entrepreneurs should immediately put their teams through Scale Up!
“I had no idea how hard this could be,” said one banker going through later stages of Scale Up! last year.
Bankers, pitching Birdseye, their drone deeptech, Oslo, 2024
But Wait—What About Founders?
Notice we didn’t list ‘founders’ here.
Founders are our key users and participants. But in our business model, founders usually don’t pay. Their supporting infrastructure organizations do.
While founders are avid participants, they’re typically supported with financing from the organizations listed above.
The Common Thread
We identified 18 unique groups of participants in “Who attends Scale Up!?” In this article, we’ve spotted 18 unique groups of buyers—organizations with a need, mandate, and budget for Scale Up!
The common thread? Strengthening startup ecosystems.
What Is Scale Up!?
Scale Up! is a team-based, action-packed, ultra-competitive simulation to learn and master the founder’s journey from idea to successful exit.
Working in teams, participants choose a case company, then work through 6-10 years to scale it into a global winner.
To date, more than 4,000 people have completed Scale Up!
Scale Up! covers:
Scaling mindset
Foundational equity
Customer discovery
Business models
Revenue growth (ARR)
Fundraising (SAFE, CLA, Equity) from pre-seed to Series F
Curious to dig into the full Strategy Sims universe and learn more about the methodology, get our latest report, Strategy Sims in Action, co-authored by a global community of Scale Up! experts.
Are you heading into one of our upcoming Scale Up MENA! Masterclasses? In that case, you might want to explore the wonders of cap table management first. Think about this as a soft warm-up exercise.
Cap tables matter
Cap tables are the backbone of any successful startup scaling into a long-term successful winner. But, along the way, founders are likely to raise 5 – 15 rounds of financing, including SAFE, CLA, Equity, Debt, RVB and Project financing. How to keep track of it all? Your cap table.
Try your skills
Leading up to the Scale Up MENA! masterclasses, we have set up a super simple, yet complex exercise for anyone to test their cap table skills.
Meet MedAssist
Here is MedAssist, a fictive case company based in MENA. Your job, guide them through five round of early-stage financing. Make the investments. Update the cap table as needed. Below are 15 early-stage mini-term sheets, based on terms you might likely see at each stage. These are based on market standards in the region.
For any requirements, just make the reasonable assumption that you have these requirements in place as you proceed. For revenue and ARR, the number is listed as you progress below.
For initial set up of the cap table. Assume you have five founders, each owning 20% each. A total of 100.000 shares, at $5 per share, equal split amongst the team. There is no vesting in place and no ESOP in place – yet.
Meet MedAssist. Can you run their cap table over five rounds?
Round 1: Idea round (friends and family)
First round has three early family members interested. Which one or ones would you choose? What would be the preferred investment instrument? At this stage, MedAssist is pre-revenue.
We all love friends and family rounds. Who would you go for here?
Round 2: Pre-seed round (business angels)
Months go by, and angel investors are lining up for the pre-seed round. With 300.000 in early revenue, the momentum is growing. Would Alex Angels, DAN or Fatima be a better fit? or maybe all of them?
Angels, angels, whom to choose?
Round 3: Seed round (accelerators)
Post angels, local accelerators are next. Sanabil 500, RAK or Startup Bootcamp are all great programs. Yet, in our example, also offering very different terms. Who would you go with?
Accelerators are key players in the ecosystem. Should you attend all of them?
Round 4: Seed+ round (early VCs)
Revenue tips the magic $1M mark. Things are looking up. VCs come around for early coffee. Note, they all want various forms of market traction and progress. Let’s just assume you already have the Dubai Market Expansion card here.
VCs are the stepping stone to larger rounds….often led by regional funds.
Round 5: Small Series A (VCs)
Ah, our final round, a small Series A. With revenue at $1.9M, we are above the classic $1M mark, but still below the new, $3M ARR milestone for a “real Series A”. With strong interest now from ADQ, SB and HG, who would you choose to work with here?
Later stage investors often tie valuations to ARR multiples. Get used to it. ARR matters….
Cap table management
Ok, you have the story, you have the data. Now, can you run up the cap table?
Assume five founders, 20.000 shares each, entry at 5 per share. You take it from there. Good luck – and post your cap table in the comment.
Welcome to Scale Up MENA! Masterclass
If you enjoyed – and have completed – our little MedAssist task, you should be ready for the upcoming Scale Up MENA! Masterclass. Globally, more than 4.000 founders, investors, VCs, family offices, sovereign wealth fund investment officers, accelerators, bankers, board members, angel investors, climate funds, consulting companies, foundations, innovation agencies, ministries, students and educators have all built their founder skills and cap table skills with Scale Up!
Now, we are excited to launch the Scale Up MENA! Masterclass, 100% tuned into the realities of fundraising in the Middle East and North Africa. Based on 12+ months of research and 15+ years with early-stage investment experience, Scale Up MENA! Masterclass lets you build out your fundraising skills, cap table skills and overall scale up leadership skills in just hours.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1762084915907.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-06 19:11:592026-05-01 19:13:18Can you run MedAssist’s Cap Table?
The journey from first contact to final investment is a structured, rigorous process that separates exceptional opportunities from the merely good. Here’s how leading venture capital firms navigate the path to investment.
The venture capital investment process isn’t a single decision—it’s a carefully orchestrated sequence of escalating commitment, deeper understanding, and strategic alignment. From the moment a startup catches a VC’s attention to the final wire transfer, each stage serves a critical purpose in de-risking the investment and building conviction.
Let’s walk through the five key phases that define how VCs invest, using insights from the VC Investment Roadmap and real-world examples from the Italian venture ecosystem.
Five steps to the VC investment roadmap (get it at www.strategytools.io)
Phase 1: Industry Insights – Building Deep Market Intelligence
Before evaluating any single startup, elite VCs invest heavily in understanding the landscape. This isn’t about skimming industry reports—it’s about developing thesis-level insights that inform every investment decision.
The Core Work: Deeply Understand the Industry
The foundation of great investing is deep industry knowledge. Top VCs complete comprehensive landscape mapping exercises that capture:
Long-term secular trends reshaping the market
Key value drivers that create defensible positions
Emerging technologies and business model innovations
Regulatory shifts and their implications
Competitive dynamics and consolidation patterns
Key Deliverable: Complete the Landscape Map. This living document becomes the strategic foundation for all deal evaluation in the sector.
Example: When Italian Ventures (fictive name), one of Italy’s early-stage VCs, began building their thesis around B2B SaaS in Southern Europe, they didn’t just track companies—they mapped the entire ecosystem. They analyzed why European SaaS companies trade at different multiples than US counterparts, identified gaps in infrastructure and talent, and recognized that Italian companies building for international markets from day one had fundamentally different trajectories. This deep industry understanding enabled them to spot great deals before competitors recognized their potential.
Phase 2: First Contact – Pattern Recognition at Scale
Once you understand the industry, you can quickly assess whether a startup fits your investment thesis. This phase is about efficient screening and comparative analysis.
The Essential Activities:
Analyze 6-10 Comparable Cases Great investors don’t evaluate companies in isolation. Complete the “Mapping the Deals” map to track:
Valuation benchmarks and pricing dynamics
Capital raised and burn rates
Active investors and syndicate patterns
Growth rates and unit economics
Competitive positioning
Study the Exit Landscape Complete the Exit Canvas to understand acquisition targets, strategic buyers, IPO readiness, and partnership opportunities. Start building relationships with potential acquirers now—exit planning begins on day one.
Pro Tip: The best VCs maintain living databases of comparable transactions. When a new opportunity emerges, they can instantly contextualize the valuation, understand if the founding team is experienced relative to peers, and spot outlier metrics that signal exceptional potential or hidden risks.
Phase 3: Digging Into the Case – First Impressions Matter
You’ve identified a promising company. Now it’s time for deeper engagement while maintaining efficiency.
The Critical Steps:
Review Deck & Materials Ask for pre-meeting access to the pitch deck and data room. Review everything closely in advance. Come to the first call with informed questions, not basic clarifications. This signals respect for the founder’s time and demonstrates your preparation.
et Up Calls Run the first 1-5 calls with management. Complete the Startup Index to assess:
Team composition and capabilities
Product-market fit evidence
Go-to-market strategy and execution
Competitive advantages and moats
Vision and strategic thinking
Italian Ventures Example: When Italian Ventures first engaged with PayX (now one of Italy’s most successful fintech unicorns before they invested), they didn’t jump straight to term sheets. They spent weeks understanding the buy-now-pay-later landscape in Southern Europe, interviewed merchants using the platform, spoke with competing solutions, and assessed the team’s ability to execute across multiple markets. Their diligence created conviction.
Decision Point: After this phase, you face a critical go/no-go decision. Most deals end here. Only those demonstrating exceptional potential proceed.
Phase 4: Deep Assessment – Building Conviction Through Analysis
For opportunities that pass initial screening, it’s time to build robust investment models and stress-test assumptions.
The Strategic Frameworks:
Capital Landscape & Funding Journey Co-develop the Funding Journey Canvas and Funding Journey Deliverables with management. Understand:
Complete capitalization history
Future funding requirements and milestones
Investor syndicate composition
Strategic capital partners vs. financial investors
Assess multiple capital strategies. Develop a deep understanding of the team’s capabilities to execute their funding journey. Will they need $5M or $50M to reach their vision? What happens if the next round doesn’t come together? How does their approach compare to successful companies in the sector?
Develop Outcome Scenarios Complete the Outcome Canvas. Take the long view on the company. Map out likely end-state outcomes and investment returns across multiple scenarios:
Bear case: Challenges emerge but value is preserved
Downside case: What’s the floor on outcomes?
Calculate potential returns under each scenario, probability-weight them, and determine if the risk-adjusted return justifies the investment.
Italian Ventures’ Approach: For their growth stage investments, Italian Ventures models 5-7 detailed scenarios spanning different exit multiples, timelines, and dilution assumptions. They pressure-test their models against historical precedent transactions in the category. Only when multiple reasonable scenarios generate target returns do they proceed.
Decision Point: May issue a preliminary term sheet with high-level terms, signaling serious intent while preserving flexibility for deeper diligence. (Note, from term sheet to signed investment agreement, we usually see ca. 50% conversion rate. Don’t expect a term sheet to be an investment. it’s not. It’s just a stepping stone)
Phase 5: Final Decision – The DDDD Sprint
You’re convinced the opportunity is exceptional. Now it’s time to finalize terms, complete comprehensive diligence, and mobilize your network.
The Four Pillars:
DDDD – Deep Dive Due Diligence Complete the full due diligence package including:
Market reference calls (customers, partners, former employees)
Background checks on key executives
Work through an accelerated DD sprint. Prepare the investment memo and draft press release—writing the press release forces clarity on why this investment matters.
Secure Co-Investors Complete the Investor CRM list. Use your global network to bring in your dream team of co-investors. The best investors are additive beyond capital—they bring:
Domain expertise and pattern recognition
Network access and business development support
Operational experience building similar companies
Follow-on capital capacity for future rounds
Clear the IC Present to the investment committee. Secure approval. The best IC presentations tell a compelling story: Why this market? Why this team? Why now? What could go wrong, and how does the team mitigate those risks?
Invest Close the deal. Settle payment. Start onboarding. Now the real work begins—you’re shifting from evaluator to partner, from outside observer to aligned investor working alongside the founders to build something extraordinary.
Decision Point: Issue the full term sheet with complete terms, conditions, and governance provisions.
The Italian Context: A Maturing Ecosystem
Italy’s venture ecosystem has experienced remarkable growth, with investments reaching €2.1 billion and a 67% increase in recent years. Many firms are professionalizing the investment process and competing on the global stage.
What makes Italian VCs distinctive is their deep understanding of building from Southern Europe while scaling globally. They’ve developed expertise in helping founders navigate cross-border expansion, understand regulatory nuances across European markets, and build teams that can execute in resource-constrained environments.
Key Principles for VCs and Founders
For Venture Capitalists:
Build industry expertise before deploying capital—deep knowledge creates conviction
Use structured frameworks to maintain discipline across the investment process
Invest in pattern recognition by tracking comparable transactions systematically
Make decisions with incomplete information, but stack the odds through rigorous process
Remember that clearing the IC is just the beginning—value creation happens post-investment
For Founders Seeking VC Investment:
Understand that each VC interaction advances you through their process—make every touchpoint count
Prepare materials in advance—VCs notice when you make their diligence easy
Articulate your funding journey clearly—show you understand capital strategy
Build relationships with potential co-investors early—VCs value founders who can help syndicate
Ask VCs about their process—understanding their timeline helps you manage yours
The Bottom Line
The venture investment process is neither art nor science—it’s both. The best VCs combine rigorous analytical frameworks with pattern recognition and intuition developed over hundreds of evaluations. They maintain discipline through structured processes while remaining flexible enough to move quickly when conviction emerges.
Every phase serves a purpose: building industry knowledge, screening efficiently, assessing deeply, modeling outcomes rigorously, and completing comprehensive diligence. Skip a phase and you introduce risk. Execute each phase well and you dramatically improve your hit rate.
The VC Investment Roadmap provides a battle-tested framework for navigating this journey. Whether you’re a first-time fund manager in Milan or a seasoned GP in Silicon Valley, these principles endure: know your market, compare relentlessly, build conviction through analysis, stress-test assumptions, and move decisively when opportunity emerges.
Ready to upgrade your investment process?
Download the complete VC Investment Roadmap and explore our full suite of strategy tools designed for venture capital investors, startups, and innovation leaders at www.strategytools.io.
This framework is part of the Venture Capital Series by Strategy Tools—empowering VCs, founders, and ecosystem builders with visual thinking tools that drive better decision-making.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1762187687872.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-06 18:59:422026-05-01 19:00:02How a VC Invests: The Venture Investment Process
Over the years, we have run more than 200 unique Scale Up! sessions globally. From 3-hour discovery sessions to 4-week investment readiness programs and everything in between. We’ve had thousands of founders, investors, ecosystem builders, government officials, and faculty join in.
Here are the 10 steps we believe are important for a winning Scale Up! session.
Step 1: Be Clear About the Format
Are we running a 3-hour discovery session? A half-day teaching session? One day? Maybe a 4-week program?
Get crystal clear on the format from the start. The structure dictates everything else—your content depth, your pacing, your materials, and what outcomes you can realistically achieve. Don’t try to squeeze a 4-week program into a half day, and don’t stretch a 3-hour session into something it’s not meant to be.
Scale Up Masterclass, InnovateBC, BC, Canada, 2025
Step 2: Know Your Participants
It’s really important that you understand who your audience is going to be. You need to understand their level, their background, their investment readiness, any previous programs they’ve completed, and who they are as individuals.
As much as possible, you want to review their decks and review their websites before you meet. This preparation makes all the difference between a generic session and one that truly resonates.
Anyone can take on the Outcome Canvas and present investor sensitivity analysis in just minutes, right?
Step 3: Align on Expectations
Here, you need to make sure that you deeply, deeply understand the expectations of your clients. And make sure you understand the expectations of the participants.
If you’re not sure about the expectations of the participants, communicate, communicate, communicate in advance. Make sure that expectations are what you want them to be—nothing else. Misaligned expectations are the fastest way to derail an otherwise excellent session
Accelerator managers turned founders for 48 hours, realizing that being a founder is harder than anyone had ever told them…… London, 2023
Step 4: Focus on the Journey
Now you want to bring out the Founder’s Journey Canvas and make sure that you craft your story and your communication around that journey. This is essential to the program. Make sure you can easily overlay each step with the right investment instrument, right investment terms and right valuations.
Navigating the Founder’s Journey. Can you structure the instruments, the terms and valuations?
The journey provides the narrative thread that holds everything together and helps participants see where they are, where they’re going, and what they need to get there.
Different participants have different journeys, but everyone follows the Founder’s Journey. Scale Up Masterclass, Cairo, Egypt, 2023
Step 5: Prepare (with Your Co-Facilitators)
We cannot emphasize this enough.
You might be delivering this by yourself. You might be delivering it with others. You might be delivering it with someone for the first time. Regardless, you need to spend as much time as needed to get aligned and prepared together.
Run through the flow. Discuss handoffs. Clarify who leads what. Iron out any differences in approach. The investment you make here pays dividends when you’re in the room with participants.
Deep team prep; pre- and post-session. Cairo, 2023
Step 6: Layout the Detailed Workflow
As part of Step 5, you need to lay out exactly the detailed step-by-step-by-step-by-step.
What are we going to do? Who does what? Who prepares what? Which canvases? Which founder tasks? Which breakouts? Which overnight assignments?
Leave nothing to chance. The more detailed your workflow, the smoother your delivery will be.
Step 7: Venue
Make sure you can access the venue at the time that you expect.
We strongly recommend setting up the venue the night before, including all the materials. If that’s not possible, try to get there 2 hours before you start in the morning and set up.
Murphy’s Law applies 800 times over when it comes to venues. The projector won’t work. The Wi-Fi will fail. The room setup will be wrong. There are no tables. Build in buffer time to handle these inevitable issues.
Step 8: Focus on the Cap Table
You have to make sure that you and your co-facilitators are up to speed on all things cap table.
Whether you choose to go with the paper version, the local host Excel version, the simple Google Sheets, or the full-on CFO Management dashboard—you have to be comfortable with the cap table.
It might need a couple of hours, a couple of days, or a couple of weeks of training to get there. Don’t skip this step. Cap table confusion kills the experience.
Teaching cap table 101, but quickly getting into the deep end of 3.2X liq.pref and anti-dilution measures. Cairo, Egypt 2023On day 1, you might want to go into SAFE conversion scenarios, maybe? Egypt, 2024…but on day 3, you can expect to see stuff like this Series C led by PIF with participation from Bessemer and Mubadala to hit a 925M post-money valuation. Scale Up MENA!, 2025
Step 9: Keep High Pace, Keep High Energy
Now you’ve started, you’re up and running, you have the participants in the room.
Make sure that you keep your pace and keep your energy. Push them. Push them. Push them.
This is the real-life experience we want them to have. Startups don’t move slowly, and neither should your session. Give them the pitch deck Founder Task. Equip them with Investor update presentations. Push them into Outcome presentations and maybe even the Board IPO readiness deck. Make them work, make them present – and always keep the energy full on.
DNB Banker leading HyperCare to IPO, Oslo, Norway, 2023
Step 10: Run an Exit Transaction
You’re now at the end of the program and you’re selecting a winner. Make sure you go through an exit transaction of some sort.
In the worst case, it’s basically “Congratulations, you’re acquired by Microsoft.” But there are many great exit scenarios you can run. Study them and
For everyone except the very most basic groups, run a proper exit scenario. If you have a really basic group, you can make up whatever you need for finding a winner. But make sure you have a clean cap table and a good exit transaction of some sort.
Four exit paths, all leading to M&As. Which one would you choose – if you could?The post-Series C M&A transaction that gave early Angels 125X MOIC, with Wamda taking home a 12,5X and PIF doubling their investment in mere months.
The Golden Rule: Always Tie It Back to Real Life
Finally, and this applies throughout the entire session: make sure that you constantly, always, always, always tie it back to real life.
As you’re going through the content, as you’re going through the stories, make sure to ask: How would this work in real life? What would be the equivalent in real life? How would you solve this in real life?
Because it’s not about the simulation. It’s about building skills for real life.
30+ accelerator managers and innovation consultants, building their skills with Scale Up! London, 2023
These ten steps have been refined through 200+ sessions across the globe. They work because they’re grounded in what actually happens when you bring founders, investors, and ecosystem builders together in a room and push them to think, decide, and act like they would in the real world.
Want to learn more about running Scale Up! sessions & Masterclasses? We deliver programs globally, by partnering with ecosystem builders, innovation agencies, ministries, accelerators, business schools, VC firms and anyone building the future of the startup ecosystem.
“We just hit unicorn status!” the founder announced proudly at the Dubai Angel Network event. Congratulations flowed. Champagne corks popped. LinkedIn lit up.
But here’s the uncomfortable question nobody asked: How are you actually going to turn that into cash?
Welcome to the MENA ecosystem’s most misunderstood trio: value creation, value realization, and exit. They’re not the same thing—and confusing them could cost you everything.
Value Creation: Building the Beast
Value creation is what you do every day as a founder. It’s growing revenue from $1M to $10M. It’s securing that killer partnership with a regional bank. It’s building proprietary IP that nobody else has. It’s expanding from Dubai to Riyadh to Cairo.
Every new customer, every product launch, every market you enter, every patent you file—that’s value creation. Your company’s equity value increases. Your IP portfolio expands. Your team strengthens. Your competitive moat widens.
MENA is crushing it here. Dubai saw 26% year-on-year growth in scale-ups. Founders are building extraordinary companies with innovative solutions for regional challenges. The value creation engine is firing on all cylinders.
But here's the problem: value creation alone doesn't pay anyone.
You can build a $500M company with incredible technology, dominant market share, and perfect unit economics. That’s phenomenal value creation. But if there’s no path to turn that value into cash? You’ve built a very expensive hobby.
Value Realization: The Forgotten Middle Step
This is where most MENA founders get lost.
Value realization isn’t the same as exit. It’s not a single event. It’s the mechanisms and paths you build to deliver liquidity back to investors and founders along the journey.
Think of value realization as your answer to: “How do we actually capture some of this value we’re creating?”
The Value Realization Toolkit includes:
Secondary Sales – Selling a portion of your shares to new investors or existing ones before exit. Smart MENA founders are negotiating secondary rights in Series B and C rounds, allowing them to take some chips off the table while the company continues scaling.
Partial Buyouts – Strategic investors or late-stage funds buying out a percentage of early investors’ positions. This creates liquidity for seed investors who’ve been in for 5+ years while you keep building.
Strategic Partnerships with Liquidity Components – When a regional bank or telecom takes a strategic stake and buys out some early angels in the process. You get the partnership and create early liquidity.
Dividend or Distribution Strategies – Rare in venture but increasingly discussed in MENA’s maturing ecosystem, especially for profitable scale-ups that don’t need to raise more capital.
Structured Secondaries with Growth Rounds – Setting up formal secondary processes alongside primary fundraising, where 20-30% of the round allows existing shareholders to sell.
The key insight? Value realization is something you plan and engineer—not something that magically happens at exit.
The MENA Reality: Great at Creating, Struggling at Realizing
Here’s what’s happening across the Middle East and North Africa right now:
Value Creation: World-Class Founders are building incredible companies. Valuations are climbing. Innovation is exploding. The region is creating value as fast as Silicon Valley and faster than Southeast Asia. Just check out Deal Room’s new data.
MENA is minting new unicorns at record pace. Source: Dealroom.
Value Realization: Immature Most founders don’t even know these mechanisms exist. Term sheets don’t include secondary provisions. Cap tables aren’t structured for partial liquidity. Investors sometimes actively resist value realization pre-exit.
Result? Founders and early employees with massive paper valuations and zero liquid wealth. Angel investors who’ve been in for 7+ years with no path to returns. Early VCs showing strong MOIC and TVPI on paper but weak DPI (actual cash back to LPs).
Exit: The Bottleneck Strategic acquirers are selective. IPO markets are developing but not mature. Cross-border M&A is complex. Every founder is waiting for “the exit” while the value they’ve created remains locked up.
This is the critical gap in the MENA ecosystem: Mastered value creation. Haven’t mastered value realization – yet.
Exit: One Path, Not the Only Path
An exit—acquisition, merger, or IPO—is the full transfer of ownership. It’s the grand finale. The moment when everyone who holds equity realizes value simultaneously.
When Careem sold to Uber for $3.1 billion, that was an exit. It delivered massive value realization in a single transaction. Former employees walked away with cash to start new ventures. Early investors returned capital to their LPs. The “Careem Mafia” was born.
But here’s what the smartest MENA founders understand: Exit is just one value realization mechanism—and it shouldn’t be the only one you plan for.
Why? Because exits are:
Uncertain (deals fall through constantly)
Slow (18-36 months from first conversation to close)
Rare (only a tiny percentage of companies achieve meaningful exits)
Binary (you either exit or you don’t—there’s no middle ground)
If exit is your only value realization strategy, you’re betting everything on a single unlikely event.
What Smart MENA Founders Do Differently
1. Build Value Realization into Your Cap Table from Day One
When you’re raising seed or Series A, negotiate secondary provisions. Build in the right for founders and early employees to take 10-20% liquidity in future rounds. Structure your ESOP for partial exercises. Don’t wait until Series C to start these conversations.
2. Create a Value Realization Roadmap Alongside Your Growth Plan
Use tools like the Outcome Canvas to map specific liquidity events:
Year 3: First founder secondary (10% of equity)
Year 5: Seed investor partial exit opportunity
Year 6: Strategic secondary or growth equity with buyout component
Year 7-8: Full exit transaction
You’re not choosing between value realization and exit—you’re building a systematic path that includes both.
3. Educate Your Investors on Progressive Liquidity
Many MENA investors still have an “all or nothing” mentality. Your job is to help them understand that progressive value realization:
De-risks the journey for everyone
Keeps founders motivated for the long haul
Proves the model works before the final exit
Creates local success stories that strengthen the ecosystem
4. Look at Maturing Markets as Your Template
In Singapore, Switzerland, and increasingly parts of Asia, value realization is systematic. Secondary markets function efficiently. Late-stage funds expect to provide some liquidity to early investors. Founders take partial liquidity at Series B+ as standard practice.
MENA needs to adopt these practices. The infrastructure is slowly emerging—growth funds offering secondaries, family offices providing liquidity solutions, regional exchanges developing. But founders need to demand these mechanisms, not just wait for them to appear.
5. Don’t Confuse Paper Gains with Real Outcomes
Your company hitting a $1B valuation is value creation. It’s impressive. It’s meaningful. But it’s not value realization until someone can convert equity into cash.
Stop celebrating valuations like they’re victories. Start celebrating liquidity events—even small ones—because those prove the model actually works.
The Path Forward for MENA
The region is at an inflection point. We’ve proven we can create extraordinary value. Now we need to mature the mechanisms for realizing that value.
This means:
Investors being open to structured secondaries and partial liquidity
Founders demanding value realization provisions in term sheets
Government entities supporting liquidity mechanisms through policy
Accelerators and advisors teaching founders about value realization paths
The difference between a mature startup ecosystem and an immature one isn’t value creation—it’s value realization infrastructure.
The Bottom Line
Value Creation = Building the company (revenue, IP, market share, team)
Value Realization = The mechanisms you use to deliver liquidity (secondaries, partial sales, strategic buyouts, and yes—exits)
Exit = One major value realization event (M&A, IPO), but not the only one
Liquidity = The actual cash that results from value realization
Stop thinking “build the company, then exit.” Start thinking “build the company, create progressive liquidity along the journey, then exit.”
The founders who master all three? They’re the ones who don’t just create paper wealth—they create generational outcomes for themselves, their teams, and their investors.
And they’re the ones who stick around long enough to build MENA’s next generation of billion-dollar companies.
At Strategy Tools, we work with MENA startups, VCs, and ecosystem builders to develop systematic approaches to value creation, value realization pathways, and exit execution. The Scale Up MENA! masterclass helps founders understand these critical distinctions—and build companies designed for liquid outcomes from day one.
The question isn’t just “What’s your company worth?” It’s “When and how do you convert that value into cash?”
In November 2025, we will be running five Scale Up MENA! Masterclasses in Dubai. In December, we are back in Cairo, Egypt again. Want to join us? Get in touch. Chris@strategytools.io
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1761988463274.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-03 19:29:482026-05-01 19:30:13Value Creation, Value Realization, Exit: Why MENA Founders Need to Know the Difference
What is a ‘good cap table’? How have we trained 4,000+ participants on cap tables to date and how can new trainers become masters of cap tables?
Over the coming 12 months we expect to train and certify 30-60 Scale Up Train-the-trainers. These range from accelerator managers, business school faculty, VCs and program managers at large, global entrepreneurship programs. Yet, what they all will face is the joy, the struggle and the complexity of ‘the cap table’.
Here is a short overview on the four most common cap table tools we use in Scale Up!
Term sheets, term sheets everywhere….
What is a ‘cap table’?
A capitalization table – or ‘cap table’ – is the living, breathing record of who owns what in your company. It tracks equity ownership across all shareholders, from founders and employees to angels, VCs, and convertible note holders. Think of it as the financial DNA of your startup.
At its core, a cap table shows the percentage ownership, the number of shares, and the type of securities each stakeholder holds. But it is far more than a static spreadsheet. A well-maintained cap table tells the story of your fundraising journey – every investment round, every SAFE conversion, every option grant to key hires. It reveals who has voting rights, who gets paid first in an exit, and how much dilution founders experience as they scale.
In Scale Up!, we have seen hundreds of teams wrestle with their cap tables. The ones who master it early gain a strategic advantage. The ones who treat it as an afterthought often face painful surprises down the road – discovering they have given away too much, structured deals poorly, or created complex messes that scare off sophisticated investors.
Why good cap table management matters?
Poor cap table management is one of the silent killers of startups. We have watched promising companies stumble not because their product failed or their market disappeared, but because their cap table became an unsolvable puzzle.
First, investors care deeply about cap table cleanliness. A messy cap table signals operational immaturity. When a Series A investor sees dozens of small angel investments, confusing SAFE terms, or founder equity splits that don’t make sense, they start asking harder questions. Some walk away entirely. In fact, based on our work with VCs across three continents, cap table issues rank among the top five deal-breakers in early-stage investments.
Second, cap table mistakes compound over time. That generous equity grant to your first employee? That SAFE with a low valuation cap? These decisions ripple through every subsequent round, affecting dilution, control, and exit economics. We have seen founding teams who, after three rounds of funding, own less than 20% of their company – leaving little incentive to keep building.
Third, transparency matters. A well-managed cap table builds trust with your team and investors. Everyone knows where they stand. Employees can model their option value. Investors can track their returns. Founders can make informed decisions about future raises. When we run Scale Up! sessions, the teams that maintain real-time cap table accuracy consistently outperform those who don’t – they make faster decisions, spot problems earlier, and negotiate better terms.
Finally, your cap table becomes critical during exits. Whether it is an acquisition, IPO, or secondary sale, the cap table determines who gets what. Liquidation preferences, anti-dilution clauses, and participation rights all flow from your cap table structure. Get it right, and everyone celebrates. Get it wrong, and you will watch your team’s wealth evaporate in legal fees and disputes.
What on earth are these terms??
What role does the cap table have in Scale Up?
In Scale Up!, the cap table isn’t just a teaching tool – it is the backbone of the entire learning experience. Everything flows through it. Every strategic decision participants make, from hiring key talent to choosing between investor offers, ultimately shows up in their cap table.
We designed Scale Up! around a simple truth: you cannot understand startup growth without understanding equity dynamics. Founders face constant trade-offs. Should they take money from that eager angel at a lower valuation, or wait for a lead investor? Should they grant 2% equity to a rockstar COO, or offer a lower package with more cash? Should they raise a large round at a high valuation, or stay lean and bootstrap longer? These questions all converge on the cap table.
Throughout the simulation, teams watch their cap table evolve in real-time. They see how their ownership percentage shrinks with each round. They feel the tension between growth capital and dilution. They experience the consequences of poor terms or ill-timed rounds. And crucially, they develop an intuition for what ‘good’ looks like – balanced ownership, clean structure, alignment with investors.
The cap table also serves as our primary performance tracking mechanism. In our leaderboard, we don’t just track revenue or valuation. We track how efficiently teams deploy capital, how well they preserve equity, and how smartly they structure their deals. The winning teams aren’t necessarily those who raise the most money – they’re the ones who reach their milestones with the least dilution.
From our experience training over 4,000 participants across accelerators, business schools, and VC programs worldwide, we have seen that mastering the cap table transforms how founders think about their business. They stop seeing fundraising as simply getting cash in the door. Instead, they start thinking strategically about capital as a tool, equity as a finite resource, and investors as long-term partners. That mindset shift is what Scale Up! is really about – and the cap table is where it happens.
Good deal? You decide
Here are the four cap tables we use in Scale Up!
Pen & Paper
For smaller groups, with less experience and less time, the good ol’ pen & paper format works perfectly fine. If you are running a discovery session (3 hours) or even a full-day session, you can get far with just pen and paper.
In fact, Scale Up! was first designed for pen & paper, in the view that we learn more when seeing and writing vs. punching numbers into a spreadsheet. There is something powerful about physically writing down each equity transaction. It forces teams to slow down, discuss each decision, and truly understand what is happening to their ownership structure.
Pro:
– Easy to use – Very easy to get started – Simple to manage for both participants and facilitators – Forces intentional, slower decision-making – Great for building foundational understanding
Con:
– Gets complex after first three rounds – Converting SAFEs and CLAs is not so easy in the paper format – More manual, so it takes a lot longer – Hard to track multiple scenarios or run sensitivity analysis
When to use it:
For small groups, lower levels of pre-existing knowledge, limited time, or when introducing basic cap table concepts for the first time.
Who’s in charge:
The team. Make sure the whole team works through this format together. Go slow. Cover the basics. This collaborative approach ensures everyone understands the fundamentals before moving to more complex tools.
Facilitator view:
With small groups, it’s pretty easy to follow. You can always see the documents and paper records on the table. Increase the group size, say, to six or ten teams and it might get a bit trickier. Budget extra time for teams to catch up, and expect to do more hands-on support walking around the room. We typically recommend one facilitator per 15-20 participants when using pen & paper.
Cap Table meets pen & paper. A sight of beauty, truly.
Excel 1.0 (the classic)
Almost as old as the pen & paper format in Scale Up!, the old Excel file is still fantastic to use. It was made for ‘save a local copy’, and has no cloud collaboration or shared leaderboard. It works. It’s simple, but it is also lacking a number of key features.
This version emerged from our early days working with accelerators who wanted something more scalable than paper, but didn’t yet need real-time tracking. It has proven remarkably durable – thousands of founders still use it today.
Pro:
– Easy to use – Covers basic cap table management, nothing else – People use it locally, can take it home and work on it overnight – No internet dependency – Teams can experiment without worrying about ‘breaking’ a shared file
Con:
– Facilitators have little to no insight into how it is going – Hard to follow and impossible to track the top performers – Mistakes are often left unsolved, due to only having local version – No real-time feedback or comparison with peers
When to use it:
Designed to make the pen & paper version slightly more suited for multiple rounds and later stages, it is simple and easy to use. The Excel 1.0 cap table tool is very suitable for small and large groups, at entry- and intermediate levels. Just don’t expect to be able to track performance or clean up mistakes in this format. Best for asynchronous work or when participants want to practice independently between sessions.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO
Facilitator view:
We have run 100’s of sessions with this tool, and it just works. Probably the best tool for super early stage founders who are still wrapping their heads around basic equity concepts. The lack of real-time visibility means you will need to schedule regular check-ins and be ready to troubleshoot issues retroactively rather than preventing them in real-time.
A super simple locally hosted Excel-based cap table, from pre-seed to seed+. No ESOP?
Google Sheet 1.0 (the basic)
A couple of years ago we started experimenting with a shared version, where we could track all teams in the same interface, and also teams could compare themselves in real-time.
We simply copied the excel version into a Google Sheet version (1.0), and voila, we had the basic version. Instantly, this was a hit with participants. The competitive element that emerged from the live leaderboard completely changed the energy in the room. Teams started benchmarking themselves, learning from top performers, and pushing themselves harder.
Pro:
– Same ease of use as Excel – Now in a shared format, with leaderboard – Easy to keep track of all teams, audit and correct cap math mistakes in real-time – Creates healthy competition and peer learning – Facilitators can provide targeted support based on what they see
Con:
– Not many; but a clear message that ‘this is only looking at financing’ – Not tracking ARR, revenue or basic accounting – Teams sometimes focus too much on leaderboard position vs. learning
When to use it:
In most sessions, really. Great for both entry, intermediate and more advanced users. If you have reliable internet and want to create a dynamic, competitive learning environment, this is your go-to tool.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO
Facilitator view:
Bringing the cap table from local Excel to shared Sheet is a game-changer. If there are two facilitators, one would spend ca. 10% of his / her time to just keep an eye on, do light audits and generally correct mistakes before they turned into major problems. The real-time visibility means you can spot patterns – which teams consistently make similar mistakes, which concepts need more explanation, which teams are ready for advanced challenges.
But, the feedback was clear; ‘where do we track everything else….?’ Teams wanted to see how their cap table decisions connected to their revenue growth, hiring plans, and burn rate. That insight led us to build version 2.0.
Series B with Vessemeyer Capital and Fifth Wall, but look closely for the pre-money, post-money and how ESOPs might skew the cap table. Any facilitator would pick this up in a seconds.
Google Sheet 2.0 (the full management dashboard)
In early 2025 we started piloting a more advanced, full scale ‘Management Dashboard’. This tool would quickly outgrow the cap table, and suddenly teams would be able to run full-scale operations, annual accounting, ARR growth, margins, Y-o-Y growth, advisors, zoo animals and exit transactions, all in the same real-time spreadsheet.
Once we saw this live, we knew we were not going back. This version represents the full Scale Up! experience – where financial strategy, operational decisions, and equity management all interconnect. Teams finally see the complete picture: how hiring that expensive VP impacts burn rate, which impacts runway, which impacts when they need to raise, which impacts dilution.
Pro:
– Comprehensive full overview across all aspects of the company – Real-time, shared with running Leaderboard – Makes it superbly easy to run the session as facilitator, offering far more depth into company financials – Reflects real-world complexity that founders actually face – Teams develop holistic strategic thinking, not just cap table mechanics
Con:
– OK, so, it is very complex. It clearly takes time to figure out, and even the best teams get parts of it wrong – It has a lot of moving parts, leaving it hard for the teams to focus on the core, cap table management – Not for beginners, as most get overwhelmed and do not understand the basic financials, never mind cap tables – Requires significantly more facilitator expertise to run well – Teams need strong collaboration and clear role division to manage effectively
When to use it:
Intermediate and advanced-level teams. Need more time. Only worth using when we have minimum one full day, preferably three days. Best for cohorts that already understand startup basics and are ready to wrestle with the messy reality of scaling a company.
Last used with:
Katapult Ocean Program, and here it worked very well. These were experienced impact-driven founders who needed to see how sustainability metrics, investor expectations, and financial performance all connected. The complexity matched their reality.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO, but all team members have dedicated working areas they own. The CEO focuses on strategy and investor relations, the CTO manages product development costs and technical hiring, the CMO tracks customer acquisition and revenue growth. This distributed ownership mirrors how real startup teams actually operate.
Facilitator view:
This is a monster to run, but once it is running it is fantastic. Due to the holistic view on each startup, the full management dashboard takes the Scale Up! experience to another level – but only if you as a facilitator can handle it. You need deep financial literacy, strong group facilitation skills, and the ability to rapidly diagnose where teams are stuck. Plan for at least two facilitators for groups larger than 20 participants. The upside? Teams leave with genuine strategic capabilities that transfer directly to their real companies.
The Leaderboard view everyone cravesZoom in, and find the Series C with SCV at 400M, with 4,4% remaining in the ESOP unallocated.But zoom out, and you realize there is quite a lot to track…
Closing thoughts
With 30-60 new trainers coming online, there will be plenty of chances for Scale Up sessions, big and small. From classrooms to Masterclasses, we will be delivering Scale Up!, Scale Up MENA! and Scale Up Africa Rising!
But, keeping track of all things cap tables is crucial. As a future facilitator, make sure you select the cap table tool that works for you and master it. Use this guide to decide on the right tool for the job for you.
Remember: the tool itself matters far less than your ability to use it effectively. We have seen brilliant sessions run with pen & paper, and mediocre ones with the full dashboard. Your job as a facilitator is to meet participants where they are, push them appropriately, and ensure they leave understanding not just how to fill out a cap table, but why it matters.
Start simple. Master one tool completely before moving to the next. Build your confidence. And most importantly, remember that behind every cap table percentage is a real founder making real decisions about their company’s future. Our job is to help them make those decisions wisely.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1761995183920.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-03 19:19:392026-05-01 19:20:29The Four Cap Tables in Scale Up!
Over the past six years working with 250+ emerging fund managers across every continent, I’ve noticed a troubling pattern. Most aspiring GPs can articulate their investment thesis in vivid detail. They know their target sectors, geographies, and check sizes. They’ve researched comparable funds and can cite industry statistics with precision.
But when I ask them to walk me through their complete fund strategy—from dealflow sources through portfolio construction to LP value proposition—the conversation often stalls.
That’s why we created the Fund Strategy Canvas. Not as another framework to add complexity, but as a visual tool to force honest conversations about the eleven interconnected elements that determine whether a fund succeeds or struggles.
Why A Canvas? Why Not A Pitch Deck?
Traditional fundraising decks are linear presentations designed to persuade. The Fund Strategy Canvas is different. It’s a thinking tool that reveals gaps, inconsistencies, and opportunities in your fund strategy before you start pitching LPs.
Think of it as pre-flight checklist. Would you want a pilot who skipped their checklist because they felt confident? Your LPs don’t want you skipping the hard strategic questions just because you’re excited about your investment thesis.
Introducing the Fund Strategy Canvas
Fund Strategy Canvas. Used by 50+ GPs to shape and sharpen their strategy
The canvas forces you to address eleven critical building blocks:
To illustrate how the Fund Strategy Canvas works in practice, let me walk you through two emerging manager cases (both are ‘illustrative examples, based on multiple real life fund manager I’ve worked with). Both are building funds in frontier markets. Both face skeptical LPs. But their approaches to the canvas reveal very different strategic choices and challenges.
Nairobi Impact Partners (case GP)
Case Study 1: Nairobi Impact Partners – Climate & Agriculture Fund
Background: Sarah Kimani and David Omondi launched Nairobi Impact Partners in 2024, targeting a $30M first close for their climate-focused impact fund across East Africa. Sarah brings 12 years from the International Finance Corporation working on climate finance. David is a second-time founder who built and exited an agritech startup in Kenya for $8M.
Fund Strategy Canvas, NIP
Let me walk through how they completed their Fund Strategy Canvas and what it revealed.
Thesis, Size & Strategy (Core):
Sarah and David’s investment thesis centers on climate adaptation technologies for smallholder farmers across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. They’re targeting early-stage companies (Series A) that have proven product-market fit with $500K-$3M annual revenue.
Their $30M fund size reflects careful math: 15-18 portfolio companies with initial checks of $1.5-2M and 50% reserved for follow-on capital. This sizing came from honest assessment of the deal pipeline and realistic assumptions about ownership targets (15-25%) given competitive dynamics in the region.
Unfair Advantage:
Here’s where their canvas work got interesting. Initially, they listed “deep market knowledge” and “strong networks” as advantages. These are table stakes, not unfair advantages.
Through canvas discussions, we identified their real edge: Sarah’s relationships with eight DFIs and impact investors who collectively manage $15B in Africa-focused capital, combined with David’s operational credibility with founders (he’s been in their shoes). More importantly, David’s exit experience means he can credibly guide portfolio companies through M&A processes—a rare skill in East African VC.
Sarah & David working with early LPs to shape the fund strategy
Team & Track Record:
Sarah brings investment experience but has never led a fund. David brings entrepreneurial credibility but limited investment experience. The canvas revealed a critical gap: neither has fundraising experience for a fund.
Their solution: they brought on Fatima Hassan as a third partner (20% carry). Fatima previously raised $50M for an East African growth equity fund and brings LP relationships and fundraising expertise. This addition fundamentally strengthened their canvas.
Dealflow:
Their initial dealflow plan was generic: “attend conferences, build reputation, take inbound.” The canvas forced specificity.
They mapped four distinct dealflow channels:
Accelerator partnerships: Formal partnerships with three climate-focused accelerators (CFAN, AgFunder, and VC4A) giving them first look at graduates
Founder network: David’s founder community provides peer referrals
University partnerships: Relationships with Strathmore University and University of Nairobi entrepreneurship programs
The canvas revealed they needed to convert these channels from ideas to executed partnerships with specific metrics. They now track dealflow by channel and measure conversion rates.
The canvas revealed this was too vague. We modeled specific scenarios:
What if their best companies need $5M Series B rounds? Their 50% reserve only covers 3-4 companies.
What happens to ownership if they can’t participate in follow-on rounds?
How do they handle bridge rounds between Series A and B?
Their refined approach: Initial checks of $1.5-2M targeting 15-20% ownership. Reserve capital structured as $750K automatic pro-rata for winners (top 5 companies) and $250K discretionary for opportunistic follow-ons. This precision came directly from canvas work.
Value Add:
“We help companies scale” is not value add—it’s aspiration. The canvas forced them to specify exactly how they add value:
Operational Support: David leads quarterly operational reviews with portfolio CEOs, focusing on unit economics, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising preparation.
Talent Recruiting: Fatima maintains a curated database of 50+ climate tech executives and makes 2-3 introductions monthly to portfolio companies.
Customer Introductions: Sarah’s DFI relationships translate into corporate customer introductions for B2B portfolio companies.
Climate Finance Access: Sarah advises portfolio companies on accessing $200M+ in climate finance facilities (grants, concessional debt) that complement equity.
Anchor LPs & LP Mix:
This is where many emerging managers struggle. Sarah and David’s initial answer: “We’ll raise from impact investors and DFIs.”
The canvas revealed the chicken-and-egg problem: DFIs want to see commercial investors committed before they participate. Commercial investors want to see strong deal terms. Impact-only funds often struggle with both.
Their breakthrough came from mapping their specific anchor LP strategy:
Target Anchor: AfricInvest (existing relationship through Sarah’s IFC work). Target commitment: $5M for credibility with other LPs.
LP Mix Strategy:
DFIs/Impact (40%): IFC, FMO, Norfund—patient capital with impact measurement requirements
Family Offices (30%): East African families with agricultural interests seeking impact exposure
Fund of Funds (20%): European impact-focused funds of funds
Corporates (10%): Strategic corporate LPs from agriculture value chain
LP Economics & Fund Economics:
Their initial terms: “2% management fee, 20% carry, standard 8-year fund life.”
The canvas revealed misalignment. DFI LPs increasingly push for 1.5% management fees on impact funds. But at $30M fund size with three partners, 1.5% generates only $450K annually—insufficient for team salaries, office, travel, and operations.
Their solution emerged from canvas work:
Management fee: 2% on committed capital for first four years, stepping down to 1.5% on invested capital thereafter
Carry: 20% with 8% preferred return to LPs
Management fee offsets: 100% of fees offset against carry (industry standard)
Working capital: Secured $500K working capital line from a supportive family office to smooth cash flow gaps
This precision came from modeling their fund economics line-by-line, a process the canvas forced them to complete before pitching LPs.
Legal Setup:
Initially: “We’ll set up in Mauritius because everyone does.”
The canvas forced examination of whether Mauritius actually served their strategy. Their LP mix includes US family offices (Mauritius has tax treaty limitations with US), European funds of funds (require specific regulatory structures), and DFIs (have varying Mauritius preferences).
Their refined approach: Delaware LP as main fund vehicle with Mauritius parallel fund for LPs requiring it. This dual structure emerged from mapping their specific LP requirements through the canvas, not copying what other funds do.
Value Creation & Exit Strategy:
Here’s where impact funds often hand-wave. “Strategic acquisitions or IPOs” doesn’t cut it when your portfolio companies are $10M revenue Kenyan agritech startups.
The canvas forced Sarah and David to map realistic exit paths:
Primary Exit Routes:
Strategic acquisitions by regional agriculture companies (Equity Bank, KCB Bank expanding into agriculture fintech; Safaricom entering agtech)
Later-stage fund acquisitions (Novastar Ventures, TLcom Capital buying positions for their growth funds)
Development finance exits (Selling to impact investors willing to accept lower returns for sustained impact)
Exit Preparation Process:
Starting Year 2 of each investment, they host annual “Exit Strategy Board Days” mapping potential acquirers and preparing companies. This systematic approach came from canvas work revealing that exits don’t happen accidentally. (did you know, the team picked that up here.)
Exit Experience:
David’s $8M agritech exit provides credible experience, but the canvas revealed a gap: Sarah has never led an M&A process. Their solution: formal advisory relationship with a Nairobi-based M&A advisor who will mentor them through their first 2-3 exits while also sourcing buyers.
LP Value Add:
Final canvas element: what value do LPs bring beyond capital?
Their strategic LPs:
IFC: Provides regulatory navigation support across East Africa
Family offices: Provide customer introductions to agriculture value chain
AfricInvest: Provides co-investment capital and M&A support
This specificity helped them target LPs strategically, not just whoever might write checks.
RAIV (Case GP)
Case Study 2: Riyadh AI Ventures – Enterprise AI Fund in MENA
Background: Omar launched Riyadh AI Ventures in 2024 targeting a $40M fund focused on enterprise AI applications across Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt. Omar spent eight years at Google leading AI partnerships in MENA, followed by three years as Chief Product Officer at Careem.
His canvas journey revealed very different challenges than Nairobi Impact Partners.
Fund Strategy Canvas for RAIV (case)
Thesis, Size & Strategy:
Omar’s thesis: Enterprise AI applications built specifically for Arabic-language markets and regional regulatory requirements. While global AI companies dominate consumer applications, enterprise AI for Arabic contexts remains underserved.
His $40M target reflects aggressive sizing for a first-time fund. The canvas forced honest conversation about whether this was realistic. Most first-time MENA VC funds close at $15-25M. Omar’s argument: his Google relationships give him access to larger institutional LPs, and MENA AI deals require larger checks than typical seed funds deploy.
Through canvas work, we stresstested this assumption. If he only reaches $25M, can the strategy still work? His answer: yes, but with 12 companies instead of 18, and higher ownership targets.
Unfair Advantage:
Omar’s initial answer: “Deep AI expertise and strong corporate relationships.”
The canvas pushed deeper. What makes him unfairly advantaged versus every other AI investor globally?
His real edge emerged: He’s one of three people globally who deeply understand both frontier AI technology AND Arabic natural language processing challenges AND have relationships with every major enterprise buyer in MENA (through his Google and Careem networks). This intersection is genuinely unique.
Moreover, his Google relationships mean he can broker access to compute resources and AI tooling for portfolio companies—a material advantage when GPU access is a startup constraint.
Team & Track Record:
Omar is a solo GP—a red flag for most LPs. The canvas made this gap explicit.
His solution: Instead of bringing on full partners (which would dilute his carry significantly), he structured venture partner relationships with three domain experts:
Technical VP: Former Meta AI researcher based in Dubai (15% carry, focused on technical due diligence)
Enterprise Sales VP: Former Oracle EMEA executive (10% carry, focused on portfolio company sales acceleration)
Finance Partner: Former Goldman Sachs MENA (10% carry, focused on fund operations and later-stage rounds)
This structure came from canvas work revealing he needed team credibility without full partner economics.
Dealflow:
Omar’s initial dealflow plan relied heavily on inbound flow from his reputation. The canvas revealed this was insufficient and risky.
His refined four-channel approach:
Corporate innovation programs: Formal partnerships with ARAMCO, STC, and Emirates NBD innovation labs to see enterprise AI pilots
University partnerships: MIT Jameel Clinic, KAUST, and American University of Cairo AI programs
AI Accelerators: Partnerships with Google for Startups MENA and Hub71
Founder outbound: Personal outreach to AI founders in stealth mode (leveraging his Google network to identify engineers leaving FAANG companies to start companies)
The canvas forced him to build redundancy into dealflow rather than hoping inbound would materialize.
Series A (6-8 companies): $2-3M initial checks, targeting 12-15% ownership
Series A+ (2-3 companies): $4-5M initial checks in breakout companies showing enterprise traction
Reserve capital: 40% of fund (higher than typical because MENA AI rounds are growing quickly and he needs pro-rata protection).
This precision only emerged through canvas modeling exercises.
Omar whiteboarding fund strategy – before finding the Fund Strategy Canvas.
Value Add:
Omar’s initial value proposition: “I help companies build AI products and scale sales.”
The canvas forced specificity on HOW:
Technical Value:
Quarterly AI strategy sessions with portfolio CTOs
Access to Google Cloud credits ($100K per portfolio company)
Introductions to AI researchers for technical hiring
Architecture reviews for scaling challenges
Go-To-Market Value:
Direct introductions to CIOs at 15 enterprise customers (ARAMCO, STC, Saudi Airlines, etc.)
Quarterly enterprise sales workshops
Pricing and packaging strategy sessions
RFP response support for government contracts
Capital Value:
Introductions to Series B funds (Balderton, Accel, Insight Partners expanding to MENA)
Guidance on US/European expansion strategy
Financial modeling and board presentation coaching
This detail makes his value proposition credible and measurable.
Anchor LPs & LP Mix:
Omar’s breakthrough on the canvas: his Google relationships extended to GV (Google Ventures) considering MENA exposure. If he could convince GV to commit $5M as anchor, it would provide massive signaling to other LPs.
His LP mix strategy:
Strategic Corporates (30%): Google Ventures, Saudi Telecom, Aramco Ventures
Sovereign Wealth/Government (25%): Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), Mubadala
US Tech VCs (25%): Firms wanting MENA exposure without full fund (Kleiner Perkins, Accel)
Family Offices (20%): Tech-savvy MENA families
The canvas revealed a tension: US VCs want standard Delaware LP terms. Sovereign wealth wants specific governance rights. Family offices want quarterly liquidity updates. He needed fund administration capable of serving this complex LP base.
LP Economics & Fund Economics:
Omar’s initial terms: “Standard 2 and 20.”
The canvas revealed that “standard” means different things to different LPs. Sovereign wealth funds in MENA increasingly demand 1.5% management fees. US tech VCs expect 2.5% fees for emerging managers with operational support.
Carry: 20% with 8% preferred return (European LPs require preferred return; US VCs prefer no hurdle—this was a compromise).
Fund Economics Working Capital:
At $40M with blended 2% management fee, Omar generates $800K annually. As solo GP with three venture partners, this covers:
Omar salary: $200K
Venture partner retainers: $150K total
Operations/legal/admin: $150K
Office/travel/events: $100K
Future hires: $200K
The canvas revealed his management fee economics were tight but workable. However, he needed $750K working capital to cover the 18-month period between first close and becoming cash-flow positive. He secured this from his anchor LP as a bridge loan.
Legal Setup:
Omar’s initial plan: “DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) because I’m based in Dubai.”
The canvas revealed problems: DIFC has limited tax treaty network. His LP mix includes US institutions who want ERISA compliance, European funds requiring specific regulatory treatment, and Saudi investors who need Sharia-compliant structures.
His solution: Parallel fund structure:
Delaware LP: Main fund vehicle for US/European LPs
DIFC Parallel Fund: For MENA-based LPs requiring regional structure
Cayman Feeder: For specific LPs requiring offshore structure
This complexity emerged only from mapping his actual LP requirements through the canvas.
Value Creation & Exit Strategy:
Here’s where MENA AI funds face reality checks. There are limited acquirers for $50M AI companies in the region. The canvas forced Omar to map realistic scenarios:
Exit Paths:
Strategic acquisitions by MENA tech companies: Careem, Noon, Tabby acquiring AI capabilities
Strategic acquisitions by global tech companies expanding to MENA: Google, Microsoft, Salesforce buying regional AI platforms
Strategic acquisitions by MENA enterprises: ARAMCO, STC, SABIC acquiring AI vendors
US/European expansion then exit: Companies that start in MENA but expand globally and exit to US/EU acquirers
Later-stage fund exits: Selling to growth equity funds (General Atlantic, Insight, Tiger Global)
The canvas revealed a critical insight: His best exits likely require portfolio companies to expand beyond MENA. This informed his value-add strategy around US/European expansion support.
Exit Experience:
Gap revealed by canvas: Omar has zero M&A experience. He’s built products and partnerships, but never closed a company sale.
His solution: Advisory board including two former corp dev executives (one from Google, one from Microsoft) who will mentor him through exits and potentially broker introductions.
LP Value Add:
Beyond capital, what do his LPs provide?
Google Ventures: Technical credibility, Silicon Valley network, potential acquisition path
US Tech VCs: Series B fundraising connections, US expansion support
Family Offices: Follow-on capital for breakout companies
The canvas helped him design an LP stack where each category provides strategic value, not just capital.
What The Canvas Reveals That Pitch Decks Hide
After walking through both funds, several patterns emerge:
1. Specificity Separates Strong Strategies From Weak Ones
“We source great deals through our network” is generic. “We have formal partnerships with three accelerators generating 12 qualified leads monthly with 15% conversion” is specific and measurable.
The canvas forces this specificity. Every vague statement gets challenged: How exactly? How many? With whom? By when?
2. Gaps Become Visible Before They Become Fatal
Both funds discovered critical gaps through canvas work:
Nairobi Impact Partners: No fundraising experience (solved by adding third partner)
Riyadh AI Ventures: No M&A experience (solved by advisory relationships)
Finding these gaps on a canvas before pitching LPs is far better than discovering them during LP due diligence.
3. Trade-Offs Become Explicit
Fund strategy is about trade-offs:
Nairobi Impact Partners chose slower growth and patient capital over aggressive returns
Riyadh AI Ventures chose concentrated portfolio with larger checks over diversification
The canvas makes you own these trade-offs rather than claiming you can have everything.
Both fund teams had unspoken assumptions about strategy until they completed the canvas together. Sarah assumed they’d raise quickly from DFIs. David knew DFIs move slowly. The canvas surfaced this disagreement.
Omar assumed his venture partners understood the portfolio construction math. They didn’t. The canvas aligned everyone.
5. The LP Perspective Becomes Central
The canvas is organized around what LPs care about:
Do you have defensible dealflow?
Can you construct a portfolio that returns the fund?
What’s your actual unfair advantage?
Do you have exit credibility?
Working through the canvas from the LP perspective reveals whether your story holds together.
How To Use The Fund Strategy Canvas
Based on watching dozens of emerging managers work through the canvas, here’s my recommended process:
Week 1: Individual Completion
Each team member completes the canvas independently. Don’t discuss or align beforehand. You want to surface disagreements.
Week 2: Team Alignment Session
Bring your canvases together. Spend 3-4 hours going through each section. Where do you disagree? Why? What assumptions are you each making?
The disagreements are where the real work happens. If one partner thinks you’ll close the fund in 9 months and another thinks 18 months, that affects everything from working capital needs to fee structures.
Week 3-4: Gap Analysis and Modeling
For each canvas section, identify gaps and model solutions:
Dealflow insufficient? Model three new sources with specific metrics
Portfolio construction unclear? Build Excel model showing various scenarios
Team incomplete? Define specific roles needed and start recruiting
Week 5-6: External Validation
Share the canvas with trusted advisors, potential LPs, and peer funds. Not as a pitch, but as a strategy artifact. Ask:
Where is our thinking unclear?
What gaps do you see?
What trade-offs would you make differently?
Week 7-8: Refinement
Revise the canvas based on feedback. The canvas should evolve as you learn.
Ongoing: Living Document
The canvas isn’t a one-time exercise. Revisit it quarterly:
Are dealflow channels performing as expected?
Is portfolio construction working?
Do you need to adjust LP mix based on fundraising reality?
Common Canvas Mistakes
After coaching 50+ funds through the canvas, I’ve seen recurring mistakes:
Mistake 1: Filling It Out Alone
The canvas’s power comes from team discussion. If you fill it out alone and present it to your team, you miss the alignment benefit.
Mistake 2: Generic Statements
“Strong network” is not an unfair advantage. “Exclusive partnership with the largest fintech accelerator in East Africa” is an unfair advantage.
The canvas demands specificity. If you can’t measure it, it’s probably not specific enough.
Mistake 3: Skipping Hard Sections
Many emerging managers gloss over exit strategy or LP economics because they’re uncertain. The uncertainty is exactly why you need to work through these sections.
Use the canvas to surface what you don’t know. Then learn it.
Mistake 4: Making It Static
Your canvas will change as you learn. Nairobi Impact Partners revised their canvas four times during fundraising as they learned what resonated with LPs.
Treat the canvas as a living strategy document, not a completed artifact.
Mistake 5: Confusing It With A Pitch Deck
The canvas is for internal strategy alignment. Your pitch deck is for external fundraising. They serve different purposes.
Complete the canvas first. Then build your pitch deck from the aligned strategy.
Why This Matters Now
The venture capital landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. LPs are more sophisticated and selective. “Good enough” fund strategies don’t get funded.
The funds that succeed are those with:
Crystal-clear differentiation
Specific, measurable strategies
Realistic understanding of their advantages and gaps
Alignment between partners on hard trade-offs
The Fund Strategy Canvas doesn’t guarantee success. But it dramatically increases your odds by forcing the hard conversations before you pitch LPs.
Every successful fund I’ve worked with has, in some form, worked through these eleven building blocks. The canvas simply makes the process systematic rather than haphazard.
If you’re building a fund, start with the canvas before you write your pitch deck. Gather your team, block out a full day, and work through each section with brutal honesty.
The gaps you discover will be uncomfortable. That discomfort is the point. Better to discover them on the canvas than in LP meetings.
Both Nairobi Impact Partners and Riyadh AI Ventures are currently in market fundraising. Sarah reports that LPs consistently comment on how well-thought-through their strategy is. Omar closed his anchor LP ($5M from Google Ventures) after a single meeting—the GV partner said his clarity on portfolio construction and exit strategy was “the most sophisticated I’ve seen from an emerging manager.”
That clarity came from canvas work, not from being smarter or more experienced. It came from doing the hard thinking systematically.
Download the Fund Strategy Canvas at www.strategytools.io and start the work. Your future LPs—and your fund’s performance—will thank you.
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1759659414103.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=15761024Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-10-29 20:11:432026-05-01 20:12:04Building Your Fund Strategy: Why Most Emerging Managers Skip The Most Important Step
Since we launched Fund Manager 4,5 years ago, more than 50 Masterclasses and programs have been delivered around the world. From Singapore to Toronto, London to Cape Town, 1.200 people have experienced building a new VC firm in just days, scaling it from idea to successful DPI.
1. Generally, low understanding of venture capital and VC lingo
Most people, including many professional investors and asset managers have a limited understanding of how venture financing works, how things are structured and even what most lingo means in practice.
A common day two phrase might be: “We’re doing a 5M at 12M post with two leads and two follows, all with 3X liq, with Softbank doing the B, chasing outlier net DPI in less than three years due to a massive M&A window to TDK, ultimately delivering us a Dragon. Who’s in?” Yes, there might be some new language and learning here. But using the Fund Journey Map and a wide range of visual canvases helps anyone break down the barriers in just days.
“It’s rare to experience something that challenges and inspires you at the same time. These three days were exactly that – exceptional structure, energy, and collaboration. Truly grateful for the experience and all the amazing people I got to meet along the way! Huge thanks to Christian Rangen and Scott Newton for making it so impactful!” – Sara Oluić,
Fund Strategy 101, Frankfurt, Germany 2025
2.Accelerated, exponential learning curve
Most people come in, expecting a ‘standard course’. This is anything but. Day 1, you strap into a rocketship as you and your newly founded team will sprint through nearly 15 years in just 2- or 3-days. Things happen at hyperscale pace – all the time.
“I came with scepticism that it is possible to deliver a venture capital program that will be challenging and engaging both to enthusiasts and professionals, in just 3 days. Christian Rangen and Scott Newton proved me wrong, they kept all of us on our toes, at the peak of our absorbing intellectual capacities with this masterfully crafted and delivered program, their infinite patience, unwavering support, relentless energy, venture capital knowledge, experience and superb training and coaching skills”
Emerging fund managers, and their LPs. Toronto, Canada, 2025
3. Great teams, great leadership matter more than great deals
Again and again, we see the pattern. The teams can be sitting on amazing deals, on great exits and stunning mark-ups; but they can’t quite figure it out. They got the pieces, but they are lakcing the leadership and team performance to turn opportunity into value. Without great leadership and excellent team performance, nothing else matter.
“Our winning moves? Play to strengths – People in the right seats, fueled with full support by the team, outperform Celebrate wins – Call out good work and keep energy high Stay agile – Learn fast, adapt to market news and redefine portfolio/exit strategies fast Go big and go bold – Trusting your thesis and deliver results” – Janine Pereyra
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4. Value creation is a big, new idea for post
Most people approach the program with two goals. 1. Raise (a bigger) fund 2. Invest in (lots of) companies it takes them some time to realize, just maybe, they have been chasing the wrong metrics. Returns, not investments. Capital back, not capital deployed. DPI, not deals, is what we focus on. In the program, we talk a lot about post-investment value add, post-investment value creation and ultimately, doubling down on your winners for extreme power law performance. But this does not happen automatically. To most, value creation to exit is a “whole new world”, when all they wanted to do was deploy capital at pace.
“The experience was an eye-opener into the principles of venture capital. It helped me understand which KPIs truly matter, what challenges arise during the fund lifecycle, and, most importantly, how to collaborate in a team that must balance a constant inflow of capital, deals, and information.”– Julian Ritzi
Deploying capital is easy. Creating value is hard. Online, CVCA, Canada, 2024
5. An incredible learning experience
“Best learning ever”, “Best training I’ve ever done”, “The highlight of our entire MBA program”.
Since start, we have been stunned by the amount of excessive, positive feedback. We believe this might just be from the high-standards we keep, the fast pace we move, and simply for the participants to working in a high-pressure , high-performance environment with great team members.
We who teach learn the most. Chris & Elena, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2024
6. Skills x mastery; not training or education
We are building skills, and developing mastery. This is not just another training program where you sit through PowerPoint decks. People are on their feet, structuring complex seed investments, negotiating with real-life LPs, writing up LP outcome analysis in just minutes, posting ‘why we invested memos’ on LinkedIn and build expertise by doing – not just listening.
For many people, we stay in touch as they transition from Masterclass to scaling their real-life funds. We aim to build mastery, not simply educate.
“And very intensive 3 days those were, indeed. Thanks to you Christian and Scott for delivering a true masterclass. There is a lot to take away from the course for everyone and at different levels of engagement with VC. I appreciated the dialogue and additional assignments, even though part of the simulation…, there is always a real world connect. Hugely recommended!!!” – Christoph Berndt, CFA
The rockstar exit, Belgrade, Serbia, 2025
7. Use AI tools – all the time
This one has been growing on us. Today, we can not phantom running a Masterclass without having the teams use AI tools – all the time.
Gamma for pitchdecks (how did we live before?)
ChatGPT for lingo (who needs to ask us, when GPT is better?)
Claude for deal memos (anyone can write a dealmemo in 3 minutes)
Bolt.new for websites (push your new site live in less than 5 minutes)
We use AI tools, all the time, in the process 10X’ing the creative outputs of the teams. People are stunned when they see their own, creative efforts multiply like this.
What winning looks like in the age of AI (thanks Dora M)
8. Working visually matters
Explaining anyone a full 15-year fund journey can be, well, hard. Teaching anyone the nuances between MOIC, TVPI and net DPI can be challenging. Helping an emerging manager construct LP outcome scenarios with outcome tables and financial returns, can be pretty tricky. But all of these things, and much, much more becomes easy, thanks to working visually.
From Fund Manager Journey (our 2,5 meter canvas), to fund strategy worksheets, a powerful visual Fund Manager! simulation and a rich library of visual canvases, soaking up the details of venture management is doable for all, thanks to how we work visually.
The Fund Journey , a visual canvas covering the full 10-15 year journey. A powerful visual backbone to Fund Manager! Serbia,2025
9. Learning never stops
In our Masterclasses, we have had senior executives, heads of family offices, GP’s with 20+ years experience, all of them seasoned investors, all of them truly excited about the experience.
“Working on exits is so important”, said on GP in Egypt. “We can never do this enough”. When first presenting a new Masterclass, we often get sceptic questions. “Why would anyone attend? Surely, they already know it all!”, is a common one. “I assume this is for juniors. Anyone working in venture should already know all this”, equally so. Neither are true. Again and again we see the most senior participants leaning in the most and reaping the benefits of their work. Like us, they realize, learning never stops.
“Big thanks for an incredible Masterclass! Three days that felt like a full fund cycle—what a way to be converted. Truly eye-opening and energizing. Grateful for the experience and looking forward to staying connected!” – Vanja Kljajevic, MBA, MSc
DFIs & GPs, teaming up, Jo’Burg, South Africa, 2024
10. Focus on the ecosystem – not just the individual
The biggest benefit to many is not the individual learning, but the collaborative work, the strengthening of ties and the benefits of ecosystem-wide collaboration. Individual mastery is valuable, but achieving the same at ecosystem is even more valuable.
As one participant noted, “I was concerned to walk into a room full of ‘finance bros,’ and instead found a welcoming group of people working to build the ecosystem.”
This is also one of the design principles behind Fund Manager! Simply, you will do better if you work together. This, of course, spills over into real life, where GP-LP connections and pre-seed-to-A-fund relationships matter. When we see a great Masterclass in the works, we can also see the clear spill-over benefits to the ecosystem.
“At Zephyr Angels and Zephyr Equity with Gogo Rafajlovski, we’re connecting capital, talent, and capability – building the next generation of investors and founders. The Western Balkans need more fund managers, more syndicates, and more people who think long-term about ecosystem design.Grateful to EBRD Star Venture, Dejan Tonic, and Ljubisa Petrovic for making this possible — and for continuing to push our region forward.” – Igor Mishevski
Building VC ecosystems, one deal at the time. Dubai, 2023
From 1.200 to 10.000 – just getting started
Today, we are 50+ Masterclasses in. We have worked with emerging fund managers, LPs from some of the biggest funds in the world, European family offices, Pacific ocean impact funds, foundations, Fund-of-funds and globally leading business schools. Looking ahead over the next 4,5 years, we are truly excited for what is ahead as we bring the Fund Manager Masterclass to 10.000 people and beyond.
MENA is where the action is. See you there! Dubai, 2023
A high-level analysis using the 10 Principles of Transformation
By: Chris Rangen & Claude.
Gearing up for multiple, upcoming C-level programs on leading transformation, we explore some of the most visible, ongoing transformation cases out there. First out: Intel.
Intel Corporation stands at one of the most critical inflection points in its storied 56-year history. Once the undisputed king of semiconductors, the company has watched rivals like Nvidia surge ahead in artificial intelligence, AMD reclaim performance leadership in CPUs, and TSMC dominate advanced manufacturing. With revenue declining from $79 billion in 2021 to $53.1 billion in 2024 and the company implementing its largest workforce reduction to date—21,000 employees following last year’s cut of 15,000—the question isn’t whether Intel needs to transform, but whether it can.
Using the 10 Principles of Transformation as our analytical framework, we examine Intel’s strategic positioning, execution capabilities, and prospects for successful reinvention in an era where computing infrastructure is being fundamentally reimagined.
The 10 Principles of Transformation
Principle 1: Understand Your Industry Shifts
Assessment: Partially Successful
Intel has correctly identified the mega-trends reshaping computing. The company recognizes three fastest-growing opportunities: AI, 5G network transformation, and the intelligent and autonomous edge, acknowledging that “we are now entering the era of distributed intelligence, where computing is pervasive.”
Under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Intel has sharpened its focus on these shifts. Tan emphasized creating “a culture of innovation driven by a renewed focus on customers and an engineering-first mindset” during Intel Vision 2025, signaling awareness that the industry’s center of gravity has moved from pure processing power to specialized AI acceleration and heterogeneous computing.
However, Intel’s response has been reactive rather than proactive. The company missed the initial AI wave that propelled Nvidia to unprecedented heights, and its acknowledgment of industry shifts came after competitors had already established commanding leads.
Principle 2: Master New Ecosystems
Assessment: Work in Progress
Intel is attempting to master multiple ecosystems simultaneously—a ambitious but necessary strategy. The company is transforming “from a CPU to a multi-architecture xPU company, from silicon to platforms, and from a traditional IDM to a new, modern IDM.”
Key ecosystem initiatives include:
AI Ecosystem: Intel’s Gaudi accelerators and AI PC portfolio, with over 40 million AI PCs expected to ship by end of 2024
Foundry Ecosystem: Positioning as a “foundry powerhouse” to serve both internal needs and external customers
Edge Computing: Leveraging its x86 dominance to capture edge and IoT opportunities
The challenge is execution scale and speed. While Intel has identified the right ecosystems, competitors like Nvidia have built more cohesive, developer-friendly platforms that create stronger ecosystem lock-in effects.
Principle 3: Build Your Core–Growth – Explore Framework
Assessment: Framework Exists, Execution Lagging
Intel has articulated a clear framework with distinct horizons:
Core: x86 processors and traditional markets
Growth: AI accelerators, data center solutions, autonomous systems
The company’s “five-nodes-in-four-years strategy” represents its core technology advancement, with Intel 18A on track to be manufacturing-ready by end of year and production wafer start volumes in first half of 2025.
However, resource allocation between these horizons has been problematic. Intel’s cost structure became bloated, with “costs too high” and “margins too low,” suggesting insufficient discipline in portfolio management and resource allocation across the core-growth-explore spectrum.
Principle 4: Create the Transformation Architecture
Assessment: Still early days
How should Intel structure itself for the future? Could parts of the company be spun off and listed as a new, younger, high-growth case? Could a strategic restructuring help unleash new innovation cycles for Intel?
New CEO Lip-Bu Tan is implementing structural changes to “flatten bloated management structures” and eliminate slow decision-making layers, with teams that were once “eight or more layers deep” now operating leaner and faster.
The architecture appears sound on paper, but execution has been inconsistent. Multiple strategy pivots, leadership changes, and the massive workforce reductions suggest the transformation architecture required fundamental redesign rather than mere optimization.
Principle 5: Develop Your Innovation Strategy
Assessment: Strategy Reformed, Results Pending
Intel’s innovation strategy centers on regaining process technology leadership and expanding beyond CPUs. The company focuses on “six areas of innovation: process and packaging, architecture, memory, interconnect, security, and software” to create differentiated xPU platforms.
Recent innovation highlights include:
Intel 18A featuring RibbonFet, PowerVia, and advanced packaging technologies
Xeon 6 CPUs with E-cores boosting efficiency by 60% and performance by 150%
AI-optimized solutions across client and data center segments
The strategy represents a departure from Intel’s historically CPU-centric approach, embracing heterogeneous computing architectures. However, innovation cycles in semiconductors are long, and Intel must execute flawlessly while competitors continue advancing.
Principle 6: Learn to Build Business Model Portfolios
Assessment: Portfolio Expansion Underway
Intel is diversifying its business model beyond traditional semiconductor sales:
Foundry Services: Competing directly with TSMC to manufacture chips for other companies
Software and Services: Expanding beyond hardware to complete solutions
IP Licensing: Monetizing intellectual property more aggressively
Government Partnerships: Leveraging geopolitical tensions to secure foundry contracts
The company is “expanding beyond the CPU to better solve customers’ problems through solutions and platforms” rather than just delivering individual components.
This portfolio approach is necessary but risky. Each business model requires different capabilities, customer relationships, and success metrics. Intel must avoid the trap of being mediocre across multiple models rather than excellent in a few.
Principle 7: Master Corporate Venturing
Assessment: Limited
This represents perhaps Intel’s weakest area in transformation execution. While Intel Capital has historically been active, there’s limited evidence of systematic corporate venturing aligned with transformation goals. In fact, in January 2025 Intel announced the intent to spin off the CVC arm, only to reverse the decision in April the same year.
Successful transformation typically requires aggressive CVC; Intel now needs to rebuild its CVC strategy.
Principle 8: Build Entirely New Strategic Capabilities
Intel is making substantial investments in new capabilities:
Foundry Operations: Building customer-facing foundry services from scratch
AI Software Stack: Developing comprehensive AI development tools and frameworks
Advanced Packaging: Investing heavily in chiplet and 3D integration technologies
Ecosystem Development: Building developer communities and partner networks
The company expects to generate “$1 billion in savings in non-variable cost of sales in 2025” while maintaining investments in strategic capabilities.
The challenge is that these new capabilities require both significant capital and different organizational cultures. Building world-class foundry services, for example, requires customer-obsessed operational excellence—a significant departure from Intel’s historically internal focus.
Principle 9: Invest More
Assessment: Constrained by Financial Reality
This principle highlights Intel’s most significant constraint. While transformation requires increased investment, Intel is simultaneously implementing a “$10 billion cost reduction plan” and reducing “gross capital expenditures in 2024 by more than 20%”.
The company suspended its stock dividend beginning Q4 2024 to preserve cash for strategic investments, but free cash flow remains negative. Intel faces the classic transformation dilemma: needing to invest more while generating less cash to fund those investments.
Government support provides some relief, with CHIPS Act funding helping sustain manufacturing investments, but private capital allocation must be ruthlessly prioritized.
Principle 10: Repeat
Assessment: Too Early to Evaluate
Transformation is iterative, requiring multiple cycles of learning and adjustment. Intel is early in its transformation journey under new leadership, making assessment of this principle premature.
However, the company’s history suggests challenges with consistent execution across cycles. Previous transformation attempts under different leaderships have yielded mixed results, indicating potential organizational impediments to sustained iterative improvement.
Transformation Verdict: Possible but Perilous
Intel’s transformation faces three fundamental challenges:
Resource Constraints: Unlike successful transformers like Microsoft or Amazon, Intel must simultaneously defend eroding core businesses while building new capabilities with limited financial resources.
Technology Convergence Speed: The pace of AI and computing evolution may outstrip Intel’s ability to catch up, particularly given the long lead times in semiconductor development.
Ecosystem Momentum: Competitors have built powerful ecosystems with strong network effects that create increasingly high barriers to entry.
However, Intel retains significant advantages:
Unmatched x86 ecosystem relationships
Deep engineering talent and IP portfolio
Strategic importance to Western governments ensuring foundry supply security
Manufacturing scale that few competitors can replicate
The Cliffhanger: An Unexpected Lifeline
Just as this analysis was being completed, the technology world was stunned by breaking news that fundamentally alters Intel’s transformation equation. Nvidia announced it will invest $5 billion in Intel’s common stock at $23.28 per share as part of a collaboration to jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products.
Jensen Huang called it a “historic collaboration” that “tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem—a fusion of two world-class platforms”, while Intel shares jumped 33% in premarket trading following the announcement.
This development represents more than financial investment—it’s validation of Intel’s x86 ecosystem value and a potential accelerant for several transformation principles simultaneously. The partnership could provide Intel with immediate access to AI capabilities while offering Nvidia deeper integration with the dominant PC and server architecture.
But will this lifeline prove to be Intel’s transformation catalyst, or merely a temporary reprieve in a longer decline? The answer will define not just Intel’s future, but the competitive structure of the entire computing industry for the next decade.
The transformation game just changed. The question is whether Intel can now play it to win.
