Of course. EC1 Capital is based in London because that is where the majority of web startups operate. Because we like to be involved in our investments we need to be mindful of the practicalities of travelling to portfolio companies. Our investment triangle is London, Dublin and Edinburgh.

At this stage no, unless you are looking to relocate to the UK and incorporate here. We have finite resources and building successful companies is hard enough without placing additional layers of geography, culture, language and commercial law.

We deliberately chose to work like this. We are fully mobile. We don’t believe we can be connected to entrepreneurs by locating ourselves in Mayfair, Chelsea or The City.

We want to immerse ourselves at every level where entrepreneurs meet, work and play and we want to put as much of our capital to work as possible without being absorbed into unecessarily high overheads.

Depending on various factors such as team, sector and the degree of traction that has been attained we will consider an investment range of £50,000 to £200,000. For larger investment amounts we will syndicate with other VC’s or Angel funds.

EC1 Capital is commited to helping all its portfolio companies in any way possible either through our network of contacts or through a mentoring process using our own personnel as well as philanthropic mentors associated with EC1 Capital who have an interest in helping out entrepreneurs where they can.

During 2012/13 we are building out a team of advisors in specific verticals such as Saas, Analytics, Mobile, Mobile Payments, E-Commerce, Social, Big Data as well as Advisors who can help us with conenctions into the US.

As a general rule no, however there can be exceptions. Even in exceptional cases we would encourage an entrepreneur to team with another suitable person at some point, it is difficult enough to run a growing startup let alone trying to handle it all by yourself.

A common trend with investors in the tech space is not to sign NDA’s. EC1 Capital does not sign NDA’s.

Our fund has just started and we want the initial remit to be as wide as possible, if it is a web related or mobile product or service then we are interested to know about it. 

As time progresses we may well narrow our focus to specific verticals.

There are no application fees. 

We like to help out in any way possible. If there is an area of expertise in your vertical that we are lacking we will find people who can help.

EC1 Capital is generally not a passive investor, we like to take meaningful positions on a board and actively contribute to company decisions.