Deeptech · Climate · Health
Pre-seed · Seed · Series A
We build ventures with founders so that they deserve capital.
Ready to Raise?
true, assumption, must change
The gate
yes · conditional · not yet
Preparing the raise
we build what is missing
The raise
you run it, we work inside
Other paths and sparring
beside the journey
We are investors who build first. We work with founders 6 to 12 months before a round, in a structured engagement with scope and terms agreed up front. We test what is true, what is assumption and what must change, and we build what is missing. Where conviction follows, we may invest our own capital and partners. That is never guaranteed.
Why most rounds do not hold
Every founder wants to build an exceptional company. Very few do.
Not because the technology or the product falls short. Because the parts an institutional investor tests before signing have not caught up with it: the commercial model, the numbers, and the case for why this scales.
Each transition changes the company
Most founders master one transition. The next one breaks them.
The five transitions
Five transitions, five different companies.
1
Technology
innovation
2
Product
customer value
3
Business
sustainable economics
4
Company
scalable execution
5
Institution
enduring value
Each transition creates a different company and asks for different capabilities. What worked at one stage rarely carries the next.
What we believe
Great companies are built through transitions, not through funding rounds.
What compounds is the company underneath, built decision by decision. Funding accelerates the work. It does not define it.
Where maan begins
We build the transitions, and the decisions inside them.
maan is not a consultancy and not a venture studio. We do not hand over recommendations, decks or investor introductions. We work inside the company, on strategy, the commercial model, operations and investment readiness. The aim is a stronger company, not a report.
In practice
Assess. Build. Potentially invest.
Assess: we test whether the company can scale and whether the investment case holds. Build: we work inside the company on what must change, 6–12 months before an institutional round. Potentially invest: where the work builds conviction, maan may invest its own capital, on a separate assessment.
Note
Both sides commit. We commit senior time and hands-on execution. Founders commit their time, their resources and the willingness to change. Scope and commercial terms are agreed in writing before substantial work begins.
How maan builds ventures
Two questions, answered independently, before capital commits.
01 · Scale readiness
Can this company turn funding into growth?
Once the capital is in, what breaks first: what is fixable, what is fatal, and what must change before the round closes, not after. The answer matters most while it is still in your hands to act on.
02 · Fund readiness
Does this company deserve institutional capital?
Whether the round is defensible, or about to pay forward someone else’s optimism. We separate what is true, what is assumption, and what must change before the round makes sense.
Better decisions → better ventures → ventures that deserve capital
For founders
When the transition comes that breaks most founders, we are already beside you.
You have built the pitch. Have you built the company? We work alongside you — building, sparring, testing — and answer the two questions that decide whether the round closes, and whether the company holds once it does, while it is still in your hands to act.
The first engagement gives you three things: an investment case that holds, the operational and commercial gaps that matter most, and a plan with clear priorities to close them. Then we build it with you.
First a conversation to see whether we fit. Then a defined engagement. Investment may follow, on its own merits.
Recent work · anonymised
Three companies, three questions tested before the round.
Digital health · fund readiness
A digital therapeutics company heading toward a round, with a therapy in clinical validation and a reimbursement pathway that would decide whether the business model worked. We tested whether the funding ask matched what clinical execution and reimbursement approval would take, and rebuilt the milestone sequence the round had to defend.
Deep tech · Series A preparation
An enterprise AI company preparing for Series A, with recurring product revenue and one-off services work blended into one growth story, and a core technical claim the investment case leaned on. We separated what was repeatable, tested customer concentration, and had the technical claim independently verified before it went in front of investors.
Industrial tech · scale readiness
An industrial-tech scale-up raising growth capital, with unit economics never independently verified and a leadership team that had not yet scaled the operational discipline the business depended on. We tested the real economics, sized the operational gap, and rebuilt the capital plan to match what the growth required.
For investors · family offices and funds
By the time you see the deal, we have worked inside it.
Early access to a very few companies we have built with in the 6–12 months before their round, the option to invest alongside us on the same terms, and evidence built inside the company — not read from a pitch deck.
We separate what is true, what is assumption and what must change, and we know what tends to break first once capital is in. Thirty years of watching what gives way under growth, written down before the investment decision. You walk into the room with evidence, not consensus.
The model is alignment
We start by building. We invest only where the evidence earns it.
maan Advisory does the building. maan Capital invests, selectively and on its own assessment. The work creates evidence, and evidence creates conviction. Working with us does not qualify a company for investment; when we invest, it is with our own money, on the same terms as anyone else. The further a venture advances, the more of the work we do with the founder, and the more our interests align.
About
We built, transformed and scaled companies before working with founders.
maan exists because of thirty years inside the moments that make or break companies — the transitions most founders face alone.
Our edge is the position as much as the experience. We work with founders before the round exists, months before any investor screening begins. By the time someone sees the deck, we have worked inside the company that wrote it.
We are independent of both sides. Our ground is the gap between financial logic and operational reality: what breaks first once capital is in, what is fixable, and what is fatal.
Thomas Koene, Founder & Managing Director
Track record · per year
We review a thousand companies to back ten.
1,000+
venture reviews
100+
assessments
10+
companies with our own money in
basis: per year · source: maan records · thirty years building, transforming and scaling companies · pre-seed to Series A
The maan worldview
Six principles behind every decision we make and every venture we build.
Not topics we write about — the principles we build by.
01
The five transitions
Every exceptional company evolves through five distinct stages.
02
Building decisions
Companies are rarely defined by one big event. They are shaped by the decisions founders make between transitions.
03
Clarity before commitment
Every major commitment deserves clarity: before scaling, before fundraising, before expansion.
04
Conviction is earned
Conviction is built by observation over time — not in one meeting, not from one pitch.
05
Scale reveals everything
Growth rarely creates problems. It exposes the ones that already exist.
06
Capital follows value
The strongest companies do not chase capital. They build businesses that deserve it.