One could argue there’s never been an easier time to start a company. But there has also never been a harder time to build and grow a great company. As Mike Tyson famously said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Haymaker spun off from Thiel Capital in San Francisco in 2017. The growth investment strategy was created in partnership with one of the largest Canadian pension funds.
We look for exceptional entrepreneurs that build companies with a significant and often under-appreciated merit. We engage with entrepreneurs who try to solve the hardest problems in sectors too often ignored. We believe in companies that can scale very rapidly and for the long-term. We look for entrepreneurs that plan in decades, want to be a world changer or luminary, and are relentless, committed, cunning and wily, and just plain tough in execution.
Haymaker started by focusing on fintech, including banking, insurance, and real estate. Haymaker Growth has expanded and covers business software, use cases for big data and artificial intelligence, or marketplaces.
+ They are leader in a smaller market today but will command huge markets eventually
+ They are durable, can defend their market position and thrive across cycles, where others failed or gave up
+ They show flexibility from pivots, efficient operations, or nimble exploitation of new tactical opportunities
+ They reach scalability from technology, customer retention or unit economics
+ They achieve hyper growth relative to their business size
+ They bring a breakthrough technology instead of adding marginal value to a current ecosystem
+ Primary, secondary, flexible structuring
+ Equity check in the $25-75 million range per deal; it could be split and extended between different rounds
+ Lead or follower
