J-Curve Capital

Investing in startups that advance human, financial, or natural capital, at scale.

Introduction

Hello world!

My name is Michael Tefula and this is an iterative digital space for my angel investing activities and investment thesis. In 2022/23, my investing is primarily funded by the Atomico Angel Programme ($100k) and Ada's Angels (£50k). My investment focus is £10k-£25k tickets in pre-seed/seed rounds across enterprise software, fintech, and climate tech, in the UK and Europe.

Feel free to DM me on Twitter if you'd like to chat about any of these ideas.

What's J-Curve Capital?

My angel investing got a power-up in 2022 through the Atomico Angel Programme and in the future, I will continue to angel invest with a mix of personal and non-personal capital. To aggregate these activities in some way, I've decided to use an umbrella term that groups my angel investing thinking and activity in one bucket.

For now, I've landed on the name J-Curve Capital. However, this may change as my ideas evolve in the coming months.

Why J-Curve Capital? The name pays homage to the j-curve pattern, a model of progress where substantial gains are possible after an initial period of investment and potential losses.

Example of a J-Curve

I like this model because it's a reminder that when you're working on something hard and important, the early days can be especially difficult. However, if you're determined to get through that initial valley of challenge, what awaits you on the other side can be tremendously rewarding.

What's the Investment Mission?

My angel investment mission is to invest in startups that advance human, financial, or natural capital, at scale.

Practically this means investing the roughly $100k of capital I have access to in 2022/23 across 5 to 6 pre-seed/seed startups that are working on scalable technology products across one or more of these areas and themes:

• Human capital (theme: productivity)

• Financial capital (theme: fairness)

• Natural capital (theme: sustainability)

I believe that each of these areas have the potential to generate substantial financial returns and I cover each in more detail on the next page.