More than half of founders that attracted VC attention were experienced entrepreneurs
Onstage (previously known as Focal), the hub for early-stage fundraising, has new data showing the top traits VCs look for in founders when investing. Although youth entrepreneurship remains strong, with 60% of European Gen Zs planning to start a business in the next 3-5 years, founders who were serial entrepreneurs or had prior product or investment experience were more likely to attract VC attention than those who didn’t.
This comes less than a month after the launch of Project Europe, a new fund aiming to support founders aged 18-25 in building Europe’s next unicorns.
Drawing data from 4,000+ applicants to its startup programme in 2024, Onstage analysed the traits of the top 50 founders that VCs selected to pitch for pre-seed, seed, and series A investment. These bi-annual events have seen the top founders receive in excess of £480 million in funding to date and the data from Onstage’s two most recent demo days in 2024 found they shared several traits. These include:
- Nearly a quarter (23%) had prior investment experience
- Nearly a quarter (23%) had prior product experience
- A fifth (20%) had prior C-Suite experience
- 52% were serial founders, with 19% being on their third company
- 16% had a PhD in their relevant field or were scientists
Of those selected to pitch for funding, 50% of founders were state-educated, a third of founders identified as women/nonbinary, and diverse founders made up 80% of the cohort.
Since 2020, Onstage has successfully run bi-annual demo days attended by thousands of leading VCs and angel investors. To date, it has built a network of 300+ VCs and 500+ angels to support fundraising and has built a community of 15,000. Its demo days have over 2,000 applicants per event, expected to reach 3,000 by the end of 2025.
Onstage will expand its investment arm this year and invest alongside top-tier VCs. Deal flow will come directly from alumni founders and the broader network Onstage has built.
Taos Edmondson, Co-Founder of Onstage, said: “Over the past three years, Onstage has built its reputation through highly curated events that offer genuine value for VCs and founders. While we need to continue investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs, European dynamism also hinges on the founders with the experience and expertise to produce high-impact, high-return propositions. We need to make sure they aren’t overlooked. Armed with the data, our extensive experience, and our network, we are excited about the next chapter of Onstage as we back the best founders through our investments.”
Anna Muñoz Farré, Co-Founder and CEO, Punto Health: “Something really cool about the Onstage Demo Day was that there was someone who was pregnant. I thought that was so cool – it made me realise that I had never seen someone pitching, or even at a conference, who was pregnant. It’s always so good to get a mix of people into startups, who can bring in different perspectives and think differently. It’s critical to set a cultural precedent where it’s acceptable to be different and think differently from your team. When you do that, you attract like-minded talent from everywhere. If you just have clones, then talent isn’t going to come to you.”
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