archimedes.studio

archimedes current portfolio

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archimedes labs 2010-2015

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archimedes ventures 2005-2010

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Let’s build something together.

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We believe that a successful startup has the following ingredients:

• A strong founder or founding team with a unique insight and the passion to follow it.
• A strong opportunity that has an inevitability about it.
• A strong likelihood that the team and idea are the natural beneficiaries of the opportunity.
• A large outcome if the team is successful

Even with all these attributes luck and timing play a major role in whether these elements result in actual success.

At the earliest stage in a company there are only ideas. Value is directly related to the strength of the idea, and how it is narrated. To develop that narrative it is necessary to be audacious, avoid all fear, and plan for success.

We exist to enable ideas to be born, and prosper. Since our founding in 2005 to our most recent initiatives, we have striven to provide a platform where the best ideas and founders can come together and thrive.

archimedes.studio works with startup founders to help establish the foundations for significant business success and associated fund raises.

We work with carefully selected companies that are capable of growing a large business relatively quickly.

Our model is close to that of a typical venture fund in that we only work with a limited number of companies at any given time. We seek ownership in the company through an instrument called a triggered warrant. We have a page describing the instrument, but in short, it means we do not get to buy equity unless the company achieves certain milestones during our engagement. The milestones are the consequence of our work which includes the following:

• Building a clear model of the unit economics of the business at scale. This is not a forecast or a plan, but a pro-forma view of the opportunity.
• Building the narrative that supports the model – this can be an executive summary or a deck or both.
• Teaching the founding team to tell the story enshrined within the model and the narrative

In order to be successful in this journey it has to be an ongoing commitment to developing the model and the narrative over successive rounds of funding. It involves clarity around the product, pricing, sales, go to market and much besides. The warrant is typically only triggered after two or more rounds when significant goals have been achieved.

We like the triggered warrant approach for several reasons. Firstly, it avoids archimedes being a “consultant” or paid contractor where we are paid irrespective of the outcome. We are only rewarded if the company is rewarded. Secondly, unlike many acceleration and incubation programs, there is no pay to play where the company pays the entity running the program. Third, unlike many programs, we do not get guaranteed equity in the 7-10% range in return for a small check. Because of this we are fully aligned with the founding team and the other investors. We only win if everybody wins.

We have participated in the following exits in the life of Archimedes.

Archimedes Labs LLC (2010-2015):

Partial Quixey Exit: sold to new Investors in 2014

M.Dot: sold to GoDaddy in 2013

Archimedes Ventures LLC (2005-2010)

TechCrunch: sold to AOL in 2010

edgeio: Sold to LookSmart and Vast.com in 2008.

Red Swoosh: Sold to Mark Cuban in 2006.

Weblogs.com: sold to Verisign in 2005

Prior to Archimedes Keith Teare had the following exits:

NetNames: Sold to NetBenefit in December 1999.

cScape: Sold to NetB2B2 in August 2000.

EasyNet: An IPO in 1996 and an acquisition by B Sky B for $374.9m in 2005. Investors made more than $1 billion from EasyNet between 1994 and 2008.