"The access to startups from 5-HT is absolutely exciting for us"

What is the most important aspect about successful collaboration? A reliable partner or rather Basinghall Partners Limited. The venture fund has recognized the unique industrial heritage as well as the strong innovation potential in Europe, one reason why it invests in early-stage companies with great teams and disruptive technologies. The goal is to foster Europeans competitive edge for the next generation of Entrepreneurs by successfully supporting young companies. 

In an interview with 5-HT, Yannick Wilden, Partner at Basinghall, tells us what the team hopes to generate from future partnerships. Including those that have come through 5-HT.  

Yannick Wilden, partner at Basinghall Partners Limited

Sharing the same vision: the cornerstone of Basinghall Partners.

Describing the motivation behind the Basinghall team, Yannick says: "Our central idea is to support the innovation power and strength in Europe. It is undisputed that European competitiveness will be strongly driven by progress in digitalization and innovation. That’s why we are convinced that an effective collaboration between industry and startups is key here to make a big difference." 

We have entrepreneurship in our blood.

Since Basinghall Partners was founded only three years ago, the venture fund knows exactly what it takes to get a startup off the ground. It is this experience that motivates the team to help other young companies with their innovative ventures.

Eight employees, eight passports

"Our team of eight is highly international," Yannick points out. He continues, 'In addition, the team has many years of leadership experience from past management roles and entrepreneurial activities, especially from the industrial and investment sector, the startup and venture capital environment. "

Our DNA: we bring industry and startup experience.

Thus, Basinghall Partners is a great sparring partner. That's because Basinghall not only has expertise in commercializing innovative ideas, but also structures value-creating investments from early stage to exit. "We use our experience from a wide range of sectors especially to promote entrepreneurship in the European region," he explains. 

What were first milestones after your founding in 2019?

Yannick Wilden describes the first three years as "successful. After the founding phase, Basinghall has been actively investing since 2020 and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of five investments have already been performed. We are planning to make another five to ten investments for the current year 2021," he continues.  "Within the last 12 months, we have been able to build a great funnel with more than 1,000 startups as well as steadily expand our fund volume.

We operate from four locations: London, Munich, Lisbon and Luxembourg.

"Basinghall stands out in particular for the industry platform, the Basinghall Innovation Circle, that we have built to support our startups and deliver on our mission," Yannick said.

This network consists of selected partners from the manufacturing, logistics, automotive, chemical, oil and gas and retail industry. 

The network thrives on intensive exchange. The aim is first to better understand the specific needs and interests of the industry partners, and then to match them with interesting startups and innovative solutions.

Here's how joining the Basinghall Investment Circle works

"We believe we can create a win-win-win situation with our Basinghall Innovation Circle," he explains. "The industry gets access to innovative solutions and the young companies that approach us get access to great established partners. Basinghall in return benefits from the exchange with the industry, especially in terms of selection and due diligence.  

The Innovation Circle not only gives startups access to potential industry partners, but also helps them get to know the market better.

"This aspect is particularly important, because we not only invest in our startups, but also help them to gain a successful foothold in the market. This contributes enormously to increasing the value of our investments," Yannick explains. 

"In doing so, we only invest in B2B startups headquartered in Europe. 

Although Basinghall is strongly driven by existing partnerships, we see ourselves as industry agnostic. Our focus is on solutions to digitize relevant industrial processes and operations, whether through artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, data analytics, computing or other technologies. All this opens up a wide range of investment opportunities."

Areas Basinghall Partners focuses on 

Basinghall Partners' sweet spot: startups in the pre-series or Series A phase.

"Next to team and product market fit, aspects such as recurring revenues and existing cost structures are also relevant," explains Yannick Wilden. "When structuring the investment, we pay attention to balanced terms that consider the interests of our investors and prepare the company to future funding rounds and growth.

Our ticket size is between 500,000 and 3 million euros.

"We usually deploy such an investment amount over several rounds. The exact terms depend on the current startup phase on the one hand and on the timing of our investment on the other," says Yannick. "Although we are keen to take on the role of lead investor, we are also open to co-investments," he adds. 

"There are several ways to enter into a conversation with us,"

Yannick explains. "Our website is a quick and easy place to start. Startups will find a link to register there. After they successfully fill it out, startups are in our process and can expect feedback in a timely manner. In general, we prefer initial contact via our website because communication is more effective this way than via social media or email, for example," he emphasizes. "But of course, we also receive many intros through our network, which is often directly connected to partner investors or industry contacts of Basinghall Partners."

How is the chemical and pharmaceutical industry relevant for you?

"Since we are open to many verticals," says Yannick, "this area is just as exciting for us as other traditional industries." The need for digitization is particularly relevant to Basinghall, which is why they like to call themselves Digital Enablers of Traditional Industries. 

"The chemical and pharmaceutical industries obviously play an important role in this context," he continues. "That's why we're very proud of the partnerships we have in this area."

"Such as 5-HT; your network is outstanding",

Yannick Wilden points out.  "That's probably also the aspect we value most about our partnership. Because your globally connected platform not only gives us access to new startups, but precisely also to potential network partners such as co-investors, VCs and corporates. 

The matching process via the 5-HT platform is absolutely exciting for us.

"Likewise, our experience has shown that the startups at 5-HT are already selected and thus naturally of high quality.

This is motivation enough for us to continue to maintain an intensive partnership with 5-HT."