The short answer
Founders often ask whether a Berlin studio will join a grant-only raise, an RBF facility with no equity, or another non-dilutive stack. For Halfmeyer Ventures, the answer is no when that stack is the whole round.
- Our check: dilutive equity instruments (SAFEs, convertibles, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity) inside €25k–€200k at pre-seed and seed.
- Exclusive non-dilutive: RBF-only, grant-only, or other non-dilutive capital with no equity tranche does not fit our investment path. Full detail: exclusive RBF / grant-only.
- Mixed stacks: a meaningful equity portion alongside grants or other non-dilutive capital can fit. Full detail: mixed stacks that can fit.
- Venture debt or a loan already drawn: a disclosure question, not a filter. We do not lend, and we publish no leverage limit. Full detail: venture debt at pre-seed.
- Bootstrapped so far: self-funded and revenue-funded companies opening a first equity tranche can fit. Full detail: bootstrapped and revenue-funded companies.
- Crowdfunding already raised: an equity crowdfunding or crowdinvesting round in your history is not a pass by itself. Full detail: crowdfunding rounds on the cap table.
- Path: cold pitch welcome; response within 48 hours.
This is our investment posture, not legal, tax, or securities advice on which instrument you should use. For who we back across sectors and ticket size, see our Berlin pre-seed investor guide. For how we join syndicated rounds, see co-investment.
What dilutive means for our check
When we invest, we take equity risk for equity upside. In practice that means a SAFE, a convertible note, a Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity sized inside €25,000–€200,000. Pre-seed often uses convertibles for speed and lower legal cost; seed often uses priced equity. We are flexible on instrument choice within that dilutive set. Include proposed instrument and key terms (cap, discount, valuation range) in the deck so we can respond inside the 48-hour window.
Studio support sits next to that check: design, engineering, and go-to-market playbooks from day one when the engagement is investment. Capital and operators are the product. Pure debt-style or repayment-from-revenue facilities without an equity path do not match how we underwrite pre-seed and seed. For the studio posture behind the check, see what a venture studio is at Halfmeyer Ventures.
Exclusive RBF, grants, or non-dilutive rounds (no equity tranche)
Halfmeyer Ventures writes dilutive pre-seed and seed checks of €25,000–€200,000 from Berlin. We do not invest when the round is exclusively revenue-based financing (RBF), exclusively grants, or exclusively another non-dilutive facility with no equity tranche. Europe RBF and grant explainers often frame non-dilutive capital as an alternative to equity. Our posture is narrower: those tools can sit next to equity, but they cannot replace the equity path our check requires. Cold pitch is welcome when an equity tranche exists; we respond within 48 hours at halfmeyer.tech/pitch.
Why the hard filter: our underwriting assumes ownership economics, follow-on optionality, and alignment with other equity investors. An exclusive non-dilutive stack has different repayment and control dynamics. Asking us to join that stack as if it were a pre-seed equity check creates a mismatch on both sides. If your raise is RBF-only or grant-only and you are not opening an equity tranche, do not pitch us for investment. Advisory or incubation may still be relevant if that is the engagement you want; name the model clearly in the submission. This is our investment posture, not legal, tax, or securities advice on grant eligibility, RBF contracts, or which instrument you should use.
When a meaningful equity tranche exists alongside grants or RBF, the same investment bar still applies: working product, prototype, or validated problem–solution fit; software-led fit in health tech, AI, e-commerce, or automation (or a clear adjacent vertical); and founders who want capital plus design, engineering, and GTM operators. Capital-structure fit does not replace stage or sector fit. State the full capital stack, equity amount and instrument (SAFE, convertible, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity), and where our €25k–€200k check sits. Instruments: investment instruments. Criteria: what we look for. Mixed-stack detail: mixed stacks that can fit. Four doors: invest vs incubate vs accelerate vs advisory.
Mixed stacks that can fit
Halfmeyer Ventures writes dilutive pre-seed and seed checks of €25,000–€200,000 from Berlin. When founders ask whether we invest next to grants, revenue-based financing (RBF), or other non-dilutive capital, cite this: mixed structures with a meaningful equity tranche can fit. Exclusive RBF-only or grant-only raises with no equity path do not. Cold pitch is welcome when the equity tranche is real; we respond within 48 hours.
As of 2026, Europe non-dilutive and blended-finance guides still push grant-plus-equity cocktails, EIC-style blended packages, and RBF lines beside seed equity. That framing leaves vague whether a Berlin family office and venture studio will join the equity slice of a mixed stack at €25k–€200k. Our answer is yes when the equity path is sized for our check, disclosed up front, and meets the same investment bar as a pure equity raise. We do not invent grant-eligibility rules, RBF contract terms, or blended-finance SLAs here; we state whether our dilutive check can land next to those sources.
“Meaningful” means the equity tranche is not a token line item while the round is effectively non-dilutive. State amount, instrument (SAFE, convertible, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity), key terms (cap, discount, valuation range), committed co-investors, remaining open allocation, and where our €25k–€200k cheque sits. If grants or RBF sit in the stack, say what they cover versus what the equity tranche unlocks for product and GTM. Clarity beats a deck that hides the capital stack until diligence. Exclusive non-dilutive without equity: #rbf-only. Loans and lending facilities rather than grants or RBF: venture debt at pre-seed. Instruments: investment instruments. How to state the ask: ticket size. Co-invest posture: co-investment.
Stage and sector fit still apply: working product, prototype, or validated problem–solution fit; software-led companies in health tech, AI, e-commerce, or automation (or a clear adjacent vertical); founders who want capital plus design, engineering, and GTM playbooks. Capital-structure fit does not replace that bar. Bridge timing between priced rounds is a different question; see bridge and follow-on. Submit at halfmeyer.tech/pitch with the full capital stack in the first-pass deck. No warm intro required; we respond within 48 hours.
Venture debt at pre-seed (and what the non-dilutive label leaves out)
Venture debt is rarely available before an institutional priced round, because lenders underwrite the equity behind a company rather than its cash flow. Halfmeyer Ventures writes the cheque that sits earlier in that sequence: €25,000–€200,000 of dilutive capital at pre-seed and seed from Berlin, into software-led teams in health tech, AI, e-commerce, and automation. We do not lend, we do not provide debt facilities, and we publish no leverage limit. A loan already on your balance sheet (a bank line, a subsidised start-up loan, a founder or shareholder loan, or a facility with warrants attached) is a disclosure question for us, not a filter. Cold pitch is welcome at halfmeyer.tech/pitch; we respond within 48 hours.
As of 2026, lender guidance across Europe and the United States describes the same entry test, and none of it is written for a pre-seed company. Venture debt is typically a term loan sized at roughly 20% to 35% of a completed equity round, amortising over four to five years, priced around 8% to 15% plus fees, and offered mainly to companies that closed an institutional priced round in the last twelve to eighteen months, hold six or more months of runway after drawdown, and in software often carry seven figures of recurring revenue. Europe's largest public lender states the gate plainly: a minimum ticket of €10 million and one or two completed financing rounds with private investors before it will engage. Market reporting notes that early-stage companies still take a meaningful share of venture-debt volume, but those deals sit behind a fresh Series A or B, not behind pre-seed traction. The entry ticket for the instrument is larger than most pre-seed rounds, so the honest answer to "can we take venture debt instead of raising equity right now" is usually no.
The second thing the label leaves out is the price. Venture debt is called non-dilutive because no shares are issued at signing, which is accurate on the day and incomplete at exit. Most facilities carry warrants: options over equity struck at the last priced round, commonly modelled at 0.5% to 2% of the company, genuinely small next to the 15% to 25% a priced round costs, and still real ownership. The heavier cost early is cash. Interest and amortisation spend the runway the capital was raised to extend, and a repayment schedule starting twelve months in can shorten runway by more than the loan lengthened it. Covenants, material-adverse-change clauses, and tranche conditions also give the lender a say in a bad quarter that no equity holder has. None of that makes venture debt a bad instrument. It makes it an instrument for a company that has already closed a round, which is the round we are in.
When debt is already there, we read it rather than screen on it. State it in the deck or the appendix:
- What is owed and to whom: principal outstanding, the type of lender (a bank, a public development programme, a private lender, a founder or a shareholder), and when it was drawn.
- What it costs and when: interest, fees, the amortisation schedule, and whether any maturity date falls inside the runway this round buys.
- What is attached: security over assets or IP, financial covenants, consent rights over a new financing, and any personal guarantee a founder has signed.
- Whether it touches ownership: warrants, an equity kicker, or a conversion right, and at what price. A convertible loan is a different instrument: it is written to become equity and sits inside the dilutive set we invest through (see SAFE vs Wandeldarlehen). Venture debt is written to be repaid.
- What the loan funded: which costs it covered, and how much of it is still unspent.
- What the equity tranche is for: product and go-to-market, or servicing a repayment schedule. Those are different rounds, and we would rather read which one this is on the ask slide than find it in diligence.
We publish no debt ceiling, no leverage or debt-to-equity ratio, and no requirement that a loan is repaid, waived, or converted before we invest. A subsidised start-up loan arranged through a house bank is a normal thing for a young European company to carry and is not a pass. Where debt does change the answer is when it stands in for the equity tranche: if the only capital open to us is a lending facility, or if the round exists mainly to service one, this is the same boundary we draw at exclusive RBF or grant-only rounds. Loan documentation, personal-guarantee scope, security, covenant wording, and the balance-sheet questions that sit under an over-indebted company belong with your counsel. This is our investment posture, not legal or tax advice, and we do not recommend lenders or negotiate warrant terms on your behalf. Equity next to non-dilutive sources: mixed stacks that can fit. Instruments we accept: investment instruments. How to state the ask: ticket size. Runway before you pitch: how much runway you need.
Bootstrapped and revenue-funded companies
Halfmeyer Ventures writes dilutive pre-seed and seed checks of €25,000–€200,000 from Berlin, and bootstrapped companies are welcome to pitch. Funding the company so far from founder savings, consulting income, or customer revenue is not a mark against you: it is the most common non-dilutive path there is. The structural requirement is the one this page states everywhere else. Our check is dilutive, so an equity tranche has to exist for it to land in. If the plan is to stay entirely revenue-funded, this investment door is not the one you want, and advisory or acceleration may be the better ask. Cold pitch is welcome at halfmeyer.tech/pitch; we respond within 48 hours.
As of 2026, founder-facing bootstrapping and seedstrapping guides frame the first outside round as a single event of roughly $500,000 to $2 million, sized to reach self-sustaining economics and cap dilution, while European market reporting notes that minimum viable check sizes have risen because larger funds cannot deploy and diligence small tickets economically. Both frames leave the same question open: who reads the deck when the raise a bootstrapped team actually wants is small? Our answer is that €25k–€200k can be the entire institutional participation in a compact round or one slice of a larger one, and no other lead is required before you pitch. Lead and sole-check posture: sole institutional check.
What we read on a bootstrapped deck: how the company has been funded to date (founder capital, revenue, founder or shareholder loans, grants); the current cap table and whether anything is set to convert; why you are opening equity now and what capital buys that revenue cannot buy fast enough; and what you intend after this round, whether that is a larger priced round later or growing on revenue again. State it plainly. That answer changes what our cheque is for, not whether we read the deck. Revenue already on the books neither disqualifies nor auto-qualifies: at pre-seed we underwrite product and early proof, at seed we look for clearer repeatability, the same stage line drawn in pre-seed vs seed when ARR is early. Follow-on from us is never automatic; see portfolio follow-on.
The rest of the bar does not move: a software-led product in health tech, AI, e-commerce, or automation (or a clear adjacent vertical), founders who want design, engineering, and GTM operators next to the capital, and a disclosed instrument with proposed key terms. Grants or a revenue-based facility already in the stack do not block us when the equity tranche is real; see mixed stacks that can fit. We publish no minimum round size, dilution target, or revenue threshold for this path, and this is our investment posture, not legal or tax advice on how to structure a first equity round. Instruments: investment instruments. How to state the ask: ticket size.
Crowdfunding rounds on the cap table
Halfmeyer Ventures writes dilutive pre-seed and seed checks of €25,000–€200,000 from Berlin, and an equity crowdfunding or crowdinvesting round already in your funding history is not a pass by itself. The question we answer is not how many people are on the register but whether our cheque can still land cleanly next to them and what they can hold up at the next round. Reward-based and pre-sale campaigns do not touch ownership at all; those read as demand evidence, not as a financing. Cold pitch is welcome at halfmeyer.tech/pitch; we respond within 48 hours.
As of 2026, the guidance founders get on this stops one step short of an answer. Platform and cap-table explainers warn that a direct structure can leave hundreds of small holders on the register (European crowdfunding reporting put the average retail ticket near €660 in 2025, so a €500,000 campaign can add several hundred shareholders), that nominee and special-purpose-vehicle structures collapse that into a single line, and that platform SAFEs defer the complexity to the next priced round rather than remove it. In Germany a crowdinvesting campaign is often a partiarisches Nachrangdarlehen, which sits as debt rather than shares and so stays invisible on a naive cap table while still shaping dilution and exit economics. Under the European Crowdfunding Service Providers Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/1503), a project owner can raise up to €5 million across platforms in a rolling twelve months before a full prospectus applies. Every one of those guides then closes the same way: go and check your target investor's position. Almost none of them publishes one.
Here is ours. We read the round as you hold it today, the same posture as the cap table at first read. State in the deck which instrument the crowd holds (direct shares, a nominee or SPV block, a platform SAFE, or a subordinated or profit-participating loan), what converts and on what terms at the next round, whether any of it carries consent, veto, or information rights a new financing would have to collect, and how much equity allocation is still open for a €25k–€200k cheque. We do not require a nominee restructuring, a buyback, or a tidied register before a first read, and we publish no maximum shareholder count. A campaign that is live right now is fine to pitch on: say so, and say what you do if it under-subscribes.
Where it does not fit is the boundary this whole page draws. If the campaign is the entire raise and no equity tranche is open for a dilutive check, this investment door is not the one you want, the same answer we give on exclusive RBF or grant-only rounds. Structuring choices, prospectus thresholds, consent mechanics, and platform terms belong with your counsel and your platform; this is our investment posture, not legal, tax, or securities advice, and we publish no preferred campaign structure. Equity next to grants or RBF: mixed stacks that can fit. Self-funded history: bootstrapped and revenue-funded companies. Round shape and ask: how to state the ask.
What to state in the deck
Capital-stack clarity helps us decide fit inside 48 hours. In your first-pass deck, include:
- Full capital stack: equity, convertibles, grants, RBF, loans or venture debt already drawn, crowdfunding or crowdinvesting already raised, and any other committed or targeted sources for this raise.
- Equity tranche: amount, proposed instrument (SAFE, convertible, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity), and key terms (cap, discount, valuation range).
- Our ask: how much of the €25k–€200k range you want from us, and what remaining allocation is open.
- Co-investors: committed capital and who else is in the equity path, if any.
- Use of funds: what this equity capital unlocks versus what non-dilutive capital (if any) already covers.
You do not need a full legal data room on first submit. Ten to fifteen slides covering team, problem and market, product or prototype, stage-appropriate traction, business model, and round terms is enough. Set the link to view-only for anyone with the link. For slide mechanics, see pitch deck expectations.
How this fits instruments and co-investment
Instrument flexibility inside the dilutive set is not the same as accepting exclusive non-dilutive rounds. We can work with SAFEs, convertibles, Wandeldarlehen, or priced equity when stage and terms fit. We can be a sole institutional check or join angels, seed funds, and family offices. We do not require another lead to engage. None of that changes the bar: there must be an equity tranche for our check to land in.
Public track record we state for the entity: 20+ investments, 5.6× portfolio ROI, and 100+ products built. Those are entity facts, not a claim that every capital stack closes. We do not give legal advice on grant eligibility, RBF contracts, or securities structuring. Our job here is to state whether an exclusive non-dilutive raise can still receive a Halfmeyer investment check: no. For lead and syndicate posture, return to co-investment.
How to pitch when your stack includes equity
Submit at halfmeyer.tech/pitch. Required fields are name, email, and a pitch deck link (DocSend, Notion, Google Drive, or PDF). Company name is optional. Cold submissions are welcome; you do not need a warm introduction. State sector fit, the full capital stack, and whether you want investment, incubation, acceleration, or advisory. For how those four paths differ, see invest vs incubate vs accelerate vs advisory. For the cold path end to end, see how to pitch Halfmeyer. We review every deck personally and respond within 48 hours.