Frequently asked questions

You do not need to sign anything for the first conversation: everything that arrives through the forms is covered by a commitment of confidentiality on our part. The confidentiality agreement is a separate document, which we send you later on, when the conversation moves into technical detail. That is: first we talk about whether there is anything, and only when the box has to be opened is anything signed.

With a timestamp of your idea, made before sending it to us: a blockchain record or a notarial deposit proving that on that date you already had it. It costs little and takes minutes. One detail worth not getting wrong: register the hash of a sealed document, not the content. Publishing the content turns it into prior art and would destroy your own novelty, which is exactly the opposite of what you want.

No, and it is worth being exact because a lot of confusion circulates on this. In Spain, as almost everywhere, the patent is granted to whoever files first, and no prior registration on its own blocks someone else's application. What the timestamp gives you is something else, and it is not little: proof. If someone not entitled files or obtains a patent on your invention, Ley 24/2015 on Patents lets you claim that ownership be transferred to you (articles 11 and 12), and to win that claim you need to prove the invention was yours and from when. The timestamp is exactly that proof. It does not replace the patent: it backs it up. This does not constitute legal advice.

It works precisely for that reason. Whoever lives with a problem knows things that are in no report: why the previous attempts failed, which constraints are real and which are habit. You do not need to bring the solution or leave your job. Start at tell us your problem.

From 1 to 5% of the project that solves it, indicative and to be set case by case. If you also contribute the idea of the solution, the range rises: a recognised idea is worth 5 to 10%. The criteria are in the doors of a problem and an idea.

The intellectual property stays in the hands of whoever contributes it and is licensed to the startup: it remains yours. And the order of the method works in your favour, because the patent is filed early, before anything is built: on the path the protection of the IP is a marker that arrives as a rule with the proof of concept.

We read every case attentively and reply within a maximum of 48 working hours. What comes afterwards is not immediate: the capture of the problem and the analysis exist precisely to decide with judgement whether there is a project, and that filter stops many cases. We prefer to say so beforehand.

We probably will not open it, and it is better to know early. The reason is in market, idea and team: without a growing market, neither the best idea nor the best team is enough. It is not a judgement on the problem, it is a condition of the instrument.

A convertible note on a specific startup: you choose the project, not a fund or a basket. Your money is, at first, a loan to the startup. You enter one of the project's seven rounds; when the startup completes that round, the loan converts into a stake, at the value the company had on the day you came in. Before that, the startup may return your capital with 10% for each year. The essentials, in the convertible note; the rounds, in the rounds.

When the startup completes the round you entered. Each project is financed in seven rounds that follow the CRL ladder; each covers whole phases and is completed when the gate of its last phase is crossed. All seven, with their entry, close, size and multiple, in the rounds.

Yes, as long as your round has not been completed: it may return your capital plus a simple premium of 10% for each year (1.10× in the first year, 1.20× in the second, 1.30× in the third). Once the round is completed, that option disappears and you are a shareholder, with no cap.

Two, as PDFs: the terms of the convertible note, with the rules in a few words, and the private investor's position, the extract from the Guide to the structure. They can be downloaded from the convertible note and from invest capital; the risks of the operation and their mitigations, in the risk matrix.

€10,000. You explore the indicative stake yourself in the private simulation, moving the year of entry, the year of exit and the valuation.

No. This door does not depend on any Spanish tax mechanism and it is the same for a domestic or an international investor. Spanish tax residence is needed for the other door, the tax investor's, which is a different instrument: it is best not to confuse them.

At any moment in the life of the startup, and the earlier, the more it is worth: coming in when there is only a problem inside is coming in at the lowest valuation of the journey. The simulator shows it in numbers, because the multiple changes with the year of entry.

It depends on the project, and sometimes it is not needed: there are projects where the capital of the tax investors and public funds are enough on their own. When they are not, the coverage does not reach the total and working capital is needed in the early phases, and that is where the convertible note comes in. The three possible configurations are in the model.

It is diluted, as in any company that raises capital, but your value does not have to fall: the capital coming in enlarges the company at the same instant. The simulator applies an indicative market dilution, around 20% at seed and Series A and 15% afterwards, and shows both faces at once.

Your loss is capped at what has been disbursed: there are no additional commitments, and the money enters in tranches against milestones checked by an independent verifier, so the following tranches do not go out if a milestone is not reached. If the project is sold as know-how, you are paid with priority, before the founders and before Volcano. Unlike the tax investor, here there is no tax credit to cushion it. The full distribution is in the risk and reward map.

By selling your stake in a liquidity event of the startup, or earlier, if the startup buys back your note within its window (capital plus 10% per year). The simulator reasons over a horizon of one to eight years; the IPO lies beyond, because IPOs come on average after ten years. There is no guaranteed secondary market: it is illiquid capital and should be treated as such.

We do not yet publish results figures of our own, and we explain it without evasion in our figures: the curve we use across the site is the sector's, not ours, and we have not redrawn it because there are not enough closed deals behind it. What you can verify today is the method, the tax architecture and the assumptions of the simulations.

Probably less than you think, and there is a whole page about that: how much information is enough to decide. We have put on the site all we could, including the rules and the calculation assumptions, precisely so that you can review it with whoever you like, your adviser included.