Founder Partners
  • ABOUT
  • TEAM
  • Building Companies
  • Selling Companies
  • Case Studies
    • Cleanshelf
    • Admovate
    • Mixbook
    • AddEvent
    • Relevad
  • Resources
    • The Founder Partners Approach
    • The Value of Working with Proven Serial Entrepreneurs
    • The 10 Most Important Lessons Learned in Selling 100+ Companies
    • How to Choose the Right Partner for Your Startup
    • Why Bootstrappers Make the Best Entrepreneurs
  • Contact

Are You a Global Technical Founder?

We Help Tech Entrepreneurs Build and ​Sell Their Companies

OUR MISSION IS TO DRAMATICALLY INCREASE THE SUCCESS RATE OF
​GLOBAL TECHNICAL FOUNDERS

ON YOUR
​OWN

% Success Rate*


* According to many sources (Business Insider, Forbes, Wall Street Journal), start-up success rates are estimated at 10%. ​​

VS

WITH FOUNDER PARTNERS

% Success Rate**


** See Builder Track Record. FounderPartners has an 85% success rate. The FP team has co-founded and/or invested in 30 companies. Of these 26 have been successful, 12 rapid growth and/or profitable, 14 exits, and only 4 failed.  

ABOUT


Founder Partners (FP) is a team of serial entrepreneurs and M&A advisors who invest in and actively help great entrepreneurs build and exit their companies. We seek capital-efficient software businesses with delighted customers. Our sector focus includes SaaS, API services, blockchain and cloud-based services.

We partner with founders to:

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BUILD COMPANIES

We actively work with you to scale your business and ensure appropriate financing.
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SELL COMPANIES

We help CEOs of portfolio and client companies plan and navigate successful exits.

​WHO WE ARE


We are serial entrepreneurs who invest our own capital and work in the trenches to make you successful.
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Serial
Entrepreneurs

We've been in your shoes. We're former company founders and CEOs who have scaled many businesses from pre-revenue to $100M+ / year.  We've collectively sold dozens of companies.
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​Based in Silicon Valley​ Yet Global

With offices around the world, our center of gravity is Silicon Valley where many of our partners are based and portfolio companies have set up their US operations. This gives us easy access to companies based in the area, whether as partners or potential suitors.
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In The
Trenches​

We work with a concentrated portfolio of companies. We're at your side, whether to help set up and scale your global business operations or to manage a sell-side process when the time is right to capture the value in your business.
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​Principal
Investors​

We're principal investors.  That means we invest our own money.  Very different from VCs/seed firms which live on management fees of OPM (other people's money, LPs).  Investing our own capital as former entrepreneurs ensures full alignment. Our companies view us as minority co-founders.

WHAT WE LOOK FOR


We love to work with global technical founders who hustle, who have achieved product-market fit in their local / regional market, who have ideally bootstrapped their companies to this point and who are:.
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Product Driven​

We're interested in companies which have created innovative, sticky products that have achieved traction with paying customers. Recurring SaaS revenues with low churn is the perfect fit.
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Scrappy​

We love to work with tenacious founders, especially those who have bootstrapped their companies, operate at the highest level of integrity, and are both visionary and data driven.
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Seeking Global Expansion​

Once you’ve demonstrated product-market fit in your local / regional market, you should be well positioned for US expansion and/or a sell-side process. This is when we step in to accelerate US market access, whether for business growth or an M&A process.
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Partner Oriented​

If you are a lone wolf, it’s not a good fit. We are seeking great founders who seek both hands-on assistance and investment. We will bring skills that complement each other and our interests will be completely aligned.

OUR TEAM


FP’s partners are proven serial entrepreneurs and seasoned bankers. We have achieved an 85% success rate in Building Companies as founders and closed over 100 transactions when Selling Companies as M&A professionals.
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Brian Flynn

Co-Founder, Partner

  • Serial entrepreneur and investor (26 companies, 10 exits, 13 rapid growth)
  • Deal-maker (70+ M&A and financing transactions including sale of Macromedia to Adobe)
  • Business development, strategy, finance​

B.A. University of Notre Dame
​​M.B.A. Harvard University
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Greg Baszucki

Co-Founder, Partner

  • ​Serial entrepreneur and investor (12 companies, 3 exits, 8 rapid growth)
  • Grew Dealix to $80m+ revenues with only $1m investment
  • Engineer, operator, product strategy​, sales, finance

​​​​B.S.E.E. University of Minnesota
​
​​
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Ted West

Partner

  • Serial entrepreneur and investor in Internet, software and services (12 companies, 7 exits, 3 rapid growth)
  • Bootstrap company builder to $20 million+ revenues
  • Strategy, business development, sales, product, operator, finance​

​B.A. Princeton University
​M.B.A. Harvard University
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Dimitri Steinberg

Partner

  • M&A investment banker for 25 years (Morgan Stanley, Lazard, BofA, HSBC)
  • Experienced deal-maker (75+ transactions, sellside and buyside, capital structure optimization)
  • CFO of Internet start-up
  • Strategy, deal-making, finance

B.A. Princeton University
​M.B.A. Harvard University​
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Bogy Skowronski

Partner - Europe

  • Serial entrepreneur and investor (7 companies)
  • Deal maker
    (15+ international transactions; listed 12 companies on NewConnect Stock Exchange)
  • Co-founder of MIT EF CEE tech accelerator in Warsaw, Poland

​B.S. MIT
​M.B.A. Harvard University
​

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David Wagonfeld​

Partner

  • Serial entrepreneur and investor
  • Business strategy, product strategy, go-to-market, raising capital
  • Boston Consulting Group, Standard Pacific, Tandem Capital

B.A. Stanford University
​M.B.A. Harvard University​
​

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Steve McKay​​

Partner

  • Three time startup CEO (all with successful exits)
  • Leader of companies ranging from 1 employee to 1,000+
  • Extensive international experience across most geographies
  • Industry Focus: Cloud Software, Digital Media, IoT, FinTech

​​B.S.E.E. University of Notre Dame
M.B.A.  Northwestern Kellogg
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Andrew Wise

Partner

  • Serial entrepreneur, advisor, and investor in information, software, and services
  • Inventor and patent holder in price setting for demand and supply aggregation
  • Board Member in 3 Indian Private Equity Funds
  • Strategy, business development, product innovation, distribution channels

B.S. Computer Science University of Illinois
​M.B.A. Harvard University
Copyright 2020 FounderPartners​
  • ABOUT
  • TEAM
  • Building Companies
  • Selling Companies
  • Case Studies
    • Cleanshelf
    • Admovate
    • Mixbook
    • AddEvent
    • Relevad
  • Resources
    • The Founder Partners Approach
    • The Value of Working with Proven Serial Entrepreneurs
    • The 10 Most Important Lessons Learned in Selling 100+ Companies
    • How to Choose the Right Partner for Your Startup
    • Why Bootstrappers Make the Best Entrepreneurs
  • Contact