About
What We Do?
The Cross Ocean Ventures is the premier early-stage investor for:
- Ambitious high-growth technology companies that got their start in Europe.
- That now plan to launch or expand their footprint in the US market.
- And are currently on a feasible growth path to receive US Venture Capital led Series-A funding within the next 12-24 months.
We love to help our portfolio companies reach their goal in the below areas:
- Commercialization: Product-market refit to the US market, go-to-market strategies customized to the US market, channel partnerships, and business modeling.
- Recruitment Support: Including a interim chief commercial officer who will jumpstart the US commercialization and expansion.
- Expansion: With industry connections, sales and marketing provider network and strategic channel partner development.
- Fundraising: Introduce and work with portfolio companies for further fund raise.
OUR FOCUS
What We Believe
At Cross Ocean Ventures we believe in the opportunity of bringing the best of both worlds in our investment approach.
Europe is great place for startups to sprout their solutions, validate their value propositions and develop their business models with:
- Fragmented market structure in most verticals
- Ideal economy size with significant innovator & early adopter customer segments
- Less costly resources and talent than the US
- Easier to access corporate partnerships
The USA is a great place to scale up validated solutions with a limited amount of adjusted work of product-market-fit and go-to-market strategies with:
- Consolidated market structure in most verticals
- A huge economy with a faster than Europe growth rate
- Single or few-layer distribution models
- Channel partnership-friendly structure
How
We Support Our Portfolio Companies
A quick expansion framework to the US ecosystem
For earlier stage portfolio companies we start by finding the best match accelerator for the portfolio company stage, valuation and industry
Support in terms of strategic advice and facilitating/recruiting an interim chief commercialization officer in the US to help with product-market-fit adjustment and developing a robust go-to-market strategy. This interim chief commercial officer will be a former founder (or a former executive in a VC-backed company) with experience in the subject matter and often an investor/mentor. The same individual could also take an active part in follow-on funding rounds as a part of the leading team and often fill the gaps in the founders’ team background.
Additional funding support
As active participants in Southern California, Silicon Valley, New York, and European startup ecosystems, we collaborate, deal-share, and co-invest with many investment companies.We are members of various angel investor network groups, are LPs at different VC firms and connected to many other US and European VC firms. We use our network to help our portfolio companies to further fund raise.
Support to prepare for future Series A round
High-quality venture capital firms that lead Series A funding rounds in the US have high expectations from European startups. These investors do not like noise in business models and financials, expect established corporate governance and data rooms and would like to see specific plans of entity restructuring and cap table adjustments for a successful round. As Cross Ocean Ventures, we see this support as one of our most critical value adds. After all, without a successful Series A round and the proper growth partners, it is tough to scale up an organization to the following main inflection point.
Our
Connections
Cross Ocean Ventures is very connected with various early stage investors, accelerators and Venture Capital firms. These connections include:
VC firms
Cross Ocean Ventures General Partners invest as Limited Partners across different VC firms in AI, SaaS, Digital Identity and Digital Health
Angel Groups
We are members of various Venture Funds and Angel Investor groups
Accelerators
We mentor and support various accelerator programs that are large and global, as well as vertical focus and/or non-dilutive.
We have a long list of business advisors, strategic service providers, interim chief commercial officers, key high-level team members, subject matter expert advisors, and non-dilutive or high-value creating accelerators.
OUR
capabilities
Cross Ocean Ventures work with you to prepare yourself for Series A by focusing on business model improvements, progressing corporate governance, and fixing investor-related challenges that could become handicaps while raising further institutional capital.
Develop deep industry relationships
Utilize extensive industry networks
Accelerate your growth and provide mentorship.
Deep subject expertise in combining integral skills.
Our Team
Meet with Our team
COV investment and advisory team have over 100 years of industry experience in business management, commercialization, and investment. We work closely with our portfolio companies to help strengthen their team, raise follow-on investment and increase market traction while helping build their operational excellence. Every single member of our team cares deeply about the success of founders, because we are founders first.
Serhat Pala
General Partner
Zeynep Ilgaz
General Partner
Milan Saes
General Partner
Haydar Nur
Analyst
Serhat Pala
General Partner
Zeynep Ilgaz
General Partner
Milan Saes
General Partner
Alex Altomare
Venture Partner
Scott Jablonski
Venture Partner
Qun Xu
Venture Partner
Bill Eigner
Board Advisor
Haydar Nur
Analyst
Kenan Pala
Research Specialist
We know
that it is about
- Seeing the everyday company building from the ground up, experiencing the first hiring to first firing, how to create a corporate culture, and influencing others to work as a team towards building the vision in the founders’ minds.
- Knowing the difficulty of making payroll and understanding the value of bootstrapping before fund-raising to build a company.
- Learning to be resourceful, creative, observant, proactive, and persistent to see through the inevitable hard days of building a company.
- Experiencing the challenges of building corporate governance and finding and building a transparent, trusting relationship with your investors.