Originally posted in Marathon Venture Capital
Thirteen years on, we have been on a mission – to help ambitious Greek founders build world-class technology companies.
We founded some of the original startups, built the community around them, put together the first venture capital funds, and delivered the first successful exits.
Three years ago, we launched Marathon Venture Capital to take our efforts to the next level. What followed since, has exceeded our expectations, plus some!
True to our roots, we started traveling the world to connect with our peers and help our community grow further. Our Greeks in Tech meetups were received with enthusiasm by hundreds of attendees from Berlin to London to New York to San Francisco, and many more locations in between.
In our quest to connect with every Greek founder anywhere, we have been privileged to get in touch with thousands of entrepreneurs, attacking some of the most challenging problems out there. Growing fast, both in numbers and ambition, their ideas, passion, and sheer execution have been incredible to watch.
We invested in 10 companies with our first fund, and we couldn’t be happier with the results! Our portfolio companies are building the best software products in their field, serving some of the world’s largest customers, and attracting the most well-respected venture capital investors across Israel, Europe, and the US.
Two short years on average after we led each seed round, most of our companies have raised Series A. Our portfolio as a whole has raised 4x our total invested amount and maintains an estimated total enterprise value of $350 million. Watching from the back seat our teams perform has been a humbling experience, and, as the industry has started to take notice, we can share with confidence that this is just the beginning.
At the same time, our market has been maturing rapidly on all fronts. A total of $1 billion per year is being invested across our broader industry, significant exits are happening at an increasing frequency, and tens of thousands of community peers accumulate practical experience that is triggering a virtuous cycle. We have been around for some time to tell the difference – Greek tech is now unstoppable.
Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Marathon Fund II! We recently completed our first closing and have currently €40 million available in fresh capital that we are starting to deploy as we speak.
We are backed by institutional investors such as EIF and HDBI, along with an ever-growing number of corporates, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals from around the world. We are grateful they put their faith in Marathon during what feels like the most uncertain period in our lifetime. What’s special for us is the multitude of successful founders now participating as investors – our ecosystem’s flywheel is in full force.
We are also happy to share that Thaleia Misailidou is promoted to Principal, and Chris Gasteratos is promoted to Associate. Both Thaleia and Chris have been with us since the beginning of this journey and are increasingly running the show behind the scenes. Together with the recent addition of Alex Alexakis, we are becoming better equipped to do more for our portfolio companies and our community at large.
Our investment strategy remains the same. We will be leading seed rounds, investing €1-1.5 million for 15-20% of equity under standard terms, also maintaining our pro-rata in future rounds.
We aim to be your extended partner in company building, not just a line in your cap table. We help you set up shop fast and get things right as you grow, build an employer brand and recruit top talent, gain more clarity to focus on what matters, also raise more capital from some of the best investors in the world. More importantly, we strive to serve as a partner you can trust, making the hard parts of starting up a bit easier.
It is no secret that we love technical founders and enterprise software; our existing portfolio speaks for itself. Our sweet spot is companies with a well-working product and initial customer demand. Still, venture is a game of exceptions, one at a time. If you are an ambitious founder building a world-class technology company, we want to talk!
Few things in life match the joy of working with a small team of builders growing fast into a company buzzing with talent, capturing the hearts and minds of customers around the world. Helping our founders’ tribe make it happen again and again, aiming higher every time, continues to be our mission – we just restated our commitment to it for the years to come.