Arcanys Ventures: What our most successful partnerships have in common

It’s surprising how often founders and executives view financial support as the only reasonable way to support a startup. I still hear this in about half the conversations I have. Of course, money is essential—startups need it to develop products, market themselves, and keep operations running until revenue becomes steady.

But there’s another crucial element that often gets overlooked: having the right skills and expertise on hand. That’s where Arcanys Ventures steps in with our tech-for-equity partnerships, bringing in the skills they need to execute their vision and navigate their next phase of growth.

A unique model designed for scaling tech startups

Arcanys Ventures invests in tech companies with strong potential to scale through powerful software products. Instead of providing cash, we assemble dedicated software development teams tailored to their unique needs. This allows founders to stretch their resources by reducing cash burn on development and reach new customers faster by accelerating product launches—without the burden of building an in-house team. If there’s ever an issue with a team member, we quickly replace them with top talent from our pool. 

A huddle with one of our in-house dev teams

An important distinction though: unlike a venture studio, we don’t incubate startups; we focus on helping existing companies scale with the right tech talent. We partner with VCs, seed funds, angel syndicates, and other investment organizations that see the value we bring—not just by expanding deal flow but by providing the technical expertise startups need to scale. Our co-investment partners include Techstars Milan, Paris, and Sydney, with whom we’ve made three investments so far.

To date, 25 companies have benefited from our services, including one successful exit. Now, we’re not the right fit for every tech startup, but we’ve learned exactly the kind of companies we work best with—and here’s what they have in common.

The companies we work best with

We’re selective and intentional when partnering with startups. The ones we work with tend to have a few things in common:

Growth Stage: We invest in startups that are typically at a turning point, usually in the late seed to Series A stages. They’ve started to find product-market fit and are generating meaningful revenue—clear signs they’re ready to scale.

Technical Alignment: A solid tech team is essential. We look for startups with a tech lead who can effectively guide their development. Their tech stack should also align with our expertise to ensure a smooth partnership. In rare cases, we provide a fractional CTO.

The team we formed for Payment Logic, one of our portfolio companies

Valuation and Funding: We typically work with startups valued between US$2 million and US$10 million, aiming to raise at least US$500,000. A portion of these funds is allocated for tech development, where we can bring the most value.

Founding Team: We place a lot of trust in the founding team. Ideally, there are 2 or 3 co-founders, though we occasionally invest in solo founders.

Purposeful Projects: We invest in projects that our developers are excited about, making sure they feel connected to the work they’re doing. This is how we keep everyone motivated and committed.

Culture Fit: The startups we partner with should foster a positive culture where teamwork, support, and knowledge sharing thrive. We believe a strong, collaborative culture is essential for success.

Startups speak: the impact of our partnerships

We’ve been lucky to team up with startups that have grown into industry leaders, with many sharing how our collaboration has made a real difference to their product growth.

Take Koobani, for example. Since 2019, we’ve helped them replace an underperforming provider and built a five-person team in less than three months. Together, we developed a standout MVP and a full product.

For Payment Logic, a fintech company, we supported their dev team as they scaled from processing $100M to $5B in payments over six years.

In their own words:

“A trusted software partner has been far more valuable to us than just bringing in a passive investor.”

— Matthew Bisset, CEO of Register Now, a SaaS firm providing event registration solutions for large-scale events across Australasia.

“We manage our Arcanys engineers in the same way as we manage our own employees. We’re very happy, they're our trusted technical partner.”

 – Jing Zhu, Founder and CEO, Duet Inc, which develops software solutions to support transportation providers to help improve their productivity.

“Our partnership has been impressive, so when it came time to raise funds, collaborating through investment made perfect sense.”

— Neil Baker, CEO of Medulla, a company offering a cloud-based platform for smart factories using AI, IoT, and MES technologies.

If you’d like to learn more or see how we can help your startup grow, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to chat.