NFX, an early-stage venture capital firm in California, has launched a seed-funding initiative that allows startups to apply for seed funding and receive a commitment in nine days or less.
Founders can apply for a $1-2 million seed round in exchange for 15% of their company.
Startups that apply will receive initial feedback within three days and know if they’ve received funding within nine days. The first window for NFX to make FAST investments began on Tuesday and ends May 22. All investments are first come, first served.
Startups who receive FAST Funding will receive the same level of support as the other companies in the NFX portfolio and will join its portfolio of more than 125 founders.
Last year, NFX closed its second fund with $275 million. Now, NFX is carving out $20 million from that fund for this new initiative, planning to almost double its investing pace.
NFX is accustomed to working with and meeting founders remotely because of its own distributed team. The VC firm has built multiple tools — Signal in 2017 and The Company Brief in 2018 — to improve the fundraising process for the startup community. The FAST Seed initiative is something NFX has been developing for a long time and that was moved up in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Last week, NFX surveyed its founder and VC network of 286 founders and 114 VCs, who provided their insights about how startups are responding to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm plans to run this survey every 5-8 weeks to see how sentiment is changing.
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