Growth-stage companies ask investors for more than capital. They need partners who can help them turn early traction into a durable business, and they judge investors on what happens after the money arrives.
Our portfolio spans financial services, consumer & retail, healthcare and energy. The same four qualities run through every company we back.
A real problem, measured in customer behaviour. Strong companies solve something customers already spend money or time on. Repeat purchases, rising usage, referrals and low churn tell us more than any market-size slide.
Founders who learn quickly. We back teams that change course when the evidence demands it. The best founders we meet can explain what they got wrong last year and what it taught them.
Technology that compounds. Many of our holdings use data or AI to get better with every customer. Grading models that improve with each garment or screening services that sharpen with each scan create an advantage competitors struggle to copy.
A route to profitability. Growth funded indefinitely by new rounds carries risk. We look for unit economics that improve with scale and a credible path to break-even within the capital available.
Governance should grow with the company. Founders who set up proper board reporting, financial controls, a clean capitalisation table and an organised data room early find later rounds and audits far easier.
Fortpark Group usually invests alongside a lead investor and other specialists. That approach gives founders a broader group of backers, each bringing different networks to the board table.
Valuation discipline still applies at every stage. We price growth on realistic assumptions and use structure, covered in our article on agreeing value, where expectations differ.
Stage matters less to us than evidence. Our holdings range from seed rounds in eye screening and home energy to later rounds in fund administration and second-hand fashion, and the questions we ask stay the same.
Regulated sectors need extra preparation. Healthcare companies face clinical evidence requirements and reimbursement negotiations, while financial services businesses must satisfy regulators in each market they enter. We expect those costs and timelines in the plan from the outset. Surprises here cost more than anywhere else.
Capital is only the start of the relationship. Founders also get operating experience from our partners, introductions to customers and later-stage investors, help preparing for the next round and a sounding board on hiring and pricing.
Many of the companies we back look beyond their home market early. Bunch already operates from Berlin, London, Amsterdam and Luxembourg. Knoops now trades in the UAE and the United States. Expansion on that scale needs local hires and partners in each market.
Fortpark Group’s London and Vienna offices help founders plan those moves before they commit capital to them. A company entering Germany or Austria can meet customers and advisers through our Vienna team, with our London partners offering the same support to DACH founders arriving in Britain.
Growth-stage investing rewards conviction backed by evidence.