We will only back a company if there is more than one founder. 

We also expect the founders to join one of our programs, IndieBio or HAX, at one of their locations, in New York City, Newark, NJ, or San Francisco, where they will work side-by-side with our General Partners and experts in deeply resourced facilities.

Yes, we continue to invest in our portfolio companies as they advance to series seed, A and later rounds. In fact, most of SOSV capital goes to follow-on rounds. But just to be clear, we invest in those later rounds only if we have already invested at pre-seed.

SOSV’s portfolio includes founders from 84 nationalities operating in 56 countries. We consider the global profile of our founders to be one of SOSV’s greatest strengths.

We review thousands of investment pitches each year and fund about 75. Here are the links to the application forms for our HAX and IndieBio programs. Each has its own review team, so feel free to apply to both.

Yup, if you can get through our admissions process.  We routinely back companies that have received non-dilutive funding. Some of our startups have received up to $20,000,000 in government and/or foundation grants and still recognize the benefits inherent in SOSV’s facilities, commercialization skills, coaching and mentorship, and vast VC/corporate funding networks.  Important to note: SOSV would still expect to invest at a pre-seed valuation, but you can be confident that you’ll move faster and improve your chances of success with SOSV at your back.

No.  That’s much too late for SOSV. It looks like we’ve missed the opportunity to work together. 

That said, once in a while existing investors recognize the value that our programs can provide to de-risking their investment and improving the economics of the company’s value proposition (in lowering the BOM or increasing yield to make your business model work, for example). In these cases, it’s possible that SOSV might invest, albeit at a pre-seed valuation (existing investors would have to sign waiver agreements). SOSV has strict ownership requirements, so we have to be able to get above a 10% ownership position for our $500k average check size, even if you have previously raised at a higher price previously.  If that doesn’t work for you, we wish you success on your journey.

Nope. We don’t invest outside of our specialty areas of deep-tech. We invest in the physical and biological sciences. If you’re interested in blockchain and crypto, consider dlab.vc. If you’re interested in e-commerce/fintech/SaaS for the emerging markets, consider orbitstartups.com. But SOSV concentrates on the areas we do because it increases the success of our teams that we’re so fundamentally committed to deep tech. We have 15 PhDs at SOSV, and >$30m of laboratory facilities across our 3 main locations.

Probably not. We tried that during COVID. We’ve found that founders succeed at much higher rates when they benefit from being located in the world’s most active venture funding markets (San Francisco Bay Area and New York), as well as learning from the world’s best teams and interacting daily in our co-working spaces, manufacturing facilities, chemistry & biology labs.

That might not work for you at this time, but it does work for the vast majority of our founders. 

It’s possible, but not likely.  The programs we have are geared towards startups while they have fewer than 10 people, less than $1m in annual revenue and usually less than $1m in prior equity fundraising. You may be burning capital at a rate for which our capital, even with the use of our facilities and labs, will not provide a substantial, game-changing inflection point. Or you may be too distracted (properly) by your ongoing revenues to maximize the value of the program, which generally requires the CEO and at least one other full-time person (generally technical) to be present to be fully engaged and benefit from the content, the network, and the pitching opportunities.

Not so! Sean O’Sullivan and the other general partners at SOSV are great folks, but Sean alone gets 500 e-mails a day.  Wrong guy to speak to, wrong guy to e-mail. And, as he’ll tell you straightaway, he does not get involved in any selection decisions for SOSV.

There are 15 people that review the thousands of applications we consider each year for the 75 startups we fund each year. If your written application is noteworthy enough, clear and compelling enough, then it will advance from a screener to a review committee, which will get in touch for a meeting. The key is to get to the intake person at each program. You do that by applying online at https://sosv.com/apply