FJ Labs (Fabrice Grinda and José Marín)

Managers

Fabrice Grinda

Jose Marin

481 Followers

+ 457 more

Background

Jose and I have been angel investing for over 14 years. We love angel investing. We love working closely with entrepreneurs. It’s an amazing learning experience and source of inspiration. It also helps us keep a finger on the pulse of the market. While we have been doing it for fun as much as anything alongside our day jobs, we developed a set of heuristics that has made our investing much more economically rewarding than we originally expected.

What we look for:

We invest in consumer facing businesses in ecommerce, travel and marketplaces. Of late we have also been considering mobile startups and SAAS sites targeting small businesses.

We invest in new innovative ideas in the US or copies of established ideas in large foreign markets, especially Brazil, Germany, Russia and Turkey. We expect the site to be live and the entrepreneur to grasp the unit economics of the business even if the site’s revenues are still low (e.g.; below $20k / month).

Send us a Powerpoint instead of a business plan or executive summary. Make sure it covers traction, business model, unit economics, funding history, terms of this round and use of funds.

Marketplace Approach:

We love marketplaces and have been focusing on end-to-end marketplaces that provide delightful experiences and make people's lives much easier. We believe the world is moving in that direction and there are huge opportunities in different categories. Read more: http://www.fabricegrinda.com/business-musings/the-evolution-of-marketplaces/

Portfolio strategy:

Most studies suggest that angels with fewer than 10 investments lose money, while those with more than 10 investments make money. Moreover, the more investments angels make, the higher their IRR as it increases their probability of a huge hit. You don’t want to invest in everything, but informed “spray and pray” seems to work, especially given the huge amount of luck involved in the success of Internet startups. Time and time again startups in my portfolio that I thought were dead came back and did extraordinarily well, while former high flyers crashed and burned!

Our 9 Business Selection Criteria:

1. At least a $1 billion addressable market
2. A valid business model understood from the get go
3. Does not require more than $2 million in seed or $15 million in first round VC money
4. A business where you have a real shot at being one of the top players – at least in the region you are targeting
5. A scalable idea
6. A business with little or no risk of disintermediation and/or margin compression by suppliers and/or customers
7. A business that is in a rapidly growing market
8. An idea that I know how to execute on or can learn how to execute on
9. An idea that I like and want to do!

More useful information:

http://www.fabricegrinda.com/entrepreneurship/and-then-there-were-a-100/

http://www.fabricegrinda.com/entrepreneurship/why-we-play-moneyball-rather-than-powerball/

http://www.fabricegrinda.com/portfolio/

Investment Focus

Locations

BerlinBrazilEuropeLondonNew YorkPalo AltoRussiaSan FranciscoSilicon Valley

Markets

Business ProductivityConsumer InternetCrowdsourcingeCommerceMarketplacesOnline TravelSaaSSocial Commerce

Stage

Early StageSeedSeries A

Portfolio Highlights* 117

Companies invested in by this Partnership. These investments may not have been completed on FundersClub.

Betterment

Personalized goal-based Investment Planning

BrightRoll Acquired

Online Video Advertising Network. Acquired by Yahoo!

Delivery Hero Partial Exit

Online Food Ordering/Delivery

Boxed

Mobile Costco

Sunrise Acquired

Mobile Social Calendar. Acquired by Microsoft

FanDuel

Fantasy Sports Platform

DineroMail Acquired

Paypal for Latin America. Acquired by Naspers

Getaround

Airbnb for Cars

Zesty Acquired

Zesty lets you order healthy meals from your favorite local restaurants. Cooked without the bad stuff, see nutrition facts and photos, filter for low carb, gluten free, paleo and more! Available in San Francisco.

Viagogo

Event Ticket Marketplace for secondary Buyers and Sellers

Flaviar

A spirits tasting club that offers a subscription service that helps members discover new liquor products through sample tasting packs.

DeRemate Acquired

Ebay for Latin America. Acquired by MercadoLibre

Lab Pixies Acquired

Provider of Personalized Webcontent and Technology. Acquired by Google

ViajaNet Partial Exit

Expedia of Brazil

Adore Me

Private Label ecommerce Lingerie

Windeln

Diapers.com for Germany

Fundbox

Fundbox offers companies a simple way to fix their cash flow by advancing payments for outstanding invoices.

MilleMercis IPO

Interactive Advertising and Marketing. IPO in France

Mister Spex Secondary Exit

Online Prescription Glasses

Wikimart

Online B2C Marketplace for Russia and CIS

Printi Acquired

VistaPrint for Brazil. Acquired by VistaPrint

Virool Acquired

Virool is a social video advertising platform that allows video creators to reach millions of viewers.

Chrono24

Global Luxury Watch Marketplace

Zeel

On-demand in-home massages

Cheetah

Cheetah is a restaurant food supplier.

RecargaPay

Latin American mobile phone payments system

Eloquii

Vertically-integrated Plus Size Fashion Brand

Din

Cook like a restaurant chef in 20 min at home. Forage gets you access to notable restaurant dishes and delivers whole & prepped ingredients.

Panjo

An online marketplace allowing auto and sports enthusiasts to make fast and secure online transactions.

Breeze

Redesigning Car Ownership for the Sharing Economy

Happn

Mobile Location-based Dating App

DoubleDutch

Mobile App For Events & Conferences

Pond5

Global Stock Media Marketplace

Porch

Home Improvement Professionals Marketplace

Lesara

Discount Commerce Retailer

Headout

Book amazing tours, fun activities and attraction tickets at the last minute on your mobile device at unbeatable prices.

Plae

Vertically-integrated Shoes Brand

Customer.io

SaaS to improve app’s engagement level

Ticketbis

Stubhub for Latin America and Spain

Studypool

Q/A Marketplace for Students

Xtreme Slots

Online Casino Games

Havenly

Your room, decorated and delivered.

CodeFights

Test your coding skills

Flexport

Global freight forwarding platform

ZIRX

On Demand Parking

Transcense

Real time audio to text translation to enable group conversation for the hearing impaired and deaf

Grubmarket

Online Marketplace for Local Foods.

Managed by Q

Smart office cleaning and management

Roadster

New car buying platform

Returnly

Re-financing commerce product returns

The Happy Home Company

Your Personal Home Manager

Olapic

Visual Marketing Platform for UGC content

BlueCrew Acquired

A temporary staffing agency that employs their workers as W2 employees for service jobs from warehouse work to produce pickers and packers to data entry personnel.

Gaia Design

Revolutionize the furniture market in Mexico through an innovative business model and platform for talented designers.

PartMyRide

PartMyRide allows automotive professionals and private parties source the best quality used parts from the most trustworthy licensed auto dismantlers. Buy Used Auto Parts Online Instantly.

Renoviso

A company passionate about putting the power back in the hands of homeowners and delivering a high quality.

Meliuz

Meliuz is an online platform that offers consumers with free discount coupons from Brazilian online stores.

Autofi

AutoFi offers the first investment platform providing direct access to own consumer auto loans. Seamless experience for the consumer, better risk adjusted returns for investors.

Talent Inc.

Talent Inc. is a career branding company to help people achieve their professional goals. We are the largest producer of professional content and career correspondence in the world.

Earnest

Earnest is a technology enabled lender that evaluates a person’s full education, employment, and financial profile. By looking beyond a simple credit score we can reward financially responsible people with better rates than traditional lenders.

Sprig

Dinner On-Demand

LendingHome

The world's leading mortgage marketplace.

Button

Effortless partnerships and beautiful app connections that drive commerce.

Seatgeek

Kayak for live event tickets

Shiftgig

The mobile labor marketplace for the service industry.

Vettery

Technical Recruiting: Upgraded

ShineOn

Easily create and sell jewelry

Pillow

Leveraging technology & data to build the #1 hospitality platform for short-term rentals

DocPlanner

Find the best doctor and book an appointment online.

Rex

Your Medicine, Delivered

GoButler

Everyone's Private Butler

INTURN

Marketplace Liquidity for Off-Price Inventory

Menu Next Door

Order a takeaway menu cooked by a neighbour

Kuainiu

Last Mile Delivery As-a-Service

Homer Logistics

Efficient Delivery Logistics for Urban Environments

Gamer Sensei

Pan game on-demand e-sports coaching platform

ReplyYes

ReplyYes is the easiest way to shop. No apps, no webpages. ReplyYes connects you with the things you love, every day, with a simple text.

Caroobi

Aircall

Easiest way for businesses to handle phone call at a global scale

Home61

OpenSooq

Shopsense Fynd

RoofStock

Tienda Nube

Zentist

Zentist is a dental care platform that connects patients with top US and International dental clinics and delivers transparent price and quality information.

KidPass

Bulk MRO Industrial Supply

Soomgo

Simple Habit

Paro

ServX

Mobile app for auto repairs in India

Mavencare

Eaze

Eaze helps patients get medical marijuana delivered on-demand easily, quickly and professionally. Now get online medical consultations via Eaze.

The Essential

A modern grocer

One Drop

Rhino Labs

Fishbrain

ShipBob

Best-in-class fulfillment solution for ecommerce brands

Rappi

Rappi is a mobile first, virtual grocer that leverages a crowdsourcing fulfillment model to deliver groceries and takeout in under 20 minutes.

Trocafone

Online recommerce platform that acquires and resells used smartphones in Latin America.

Rebagg

Cash for designer handbags.

Frontstarter, Inc.

Move The World

LightSense

Coupang

E-commerce platform

Reverb

Buy and sell music gear

Meero

On-demand professional photographers

Allset

Roadrunner Recycling, Inc.

Morty

SafeGraph

Knockaway

Ingresse

Hello Clue

Pollen

Auction Mobility

Shade

Show All Portfolio Highlights

* These examples are purely for illustration. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing in early-stage companies involves substantial risks and many early-stage investments will be unsuccessful, which is why FundersClub believes it is important to have a diversified portfolio of such investments.