2022 was the second full year of Catch The Tornado existence.

2022 was the second full year of Catch The Tornado existence.?

We started with a pretty well-defined BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal :)) which is: to help Enterprise Software Entrepreneurs to grow their companies globally.?

During the last year with a lot of discussions + some good trial and error encounters we eventually distilled our offer into these three key areas:

1. Building your Company with us (Startup Studio style).
2. Investment and Advisory for existing Enterprise Software companies that plan to go globally.
3. Scaling-up: Global Sales&Marketing, M&A, HR, Succession, Exit planning.

The last missing puzzle was Education and Knowledge Sharing - which are the foundation of every entrepreneurial success. With this in mind, early this year we also started a sister-organization Catch The Tornado Dots, which runs a thriving community of SaaS company Founders. The main focus of Dots is on education and knowledge sharing.?

Investments we made during 2022 and why

• TechTree - The first social economic network for techies & devs. A platform where people in the tech space can unlock the value of their networks, knowledge and data. Why: It’s very natural to use a reco when you hire people and this product makes this idea scalable.
• Demoboost - Create & personalize any demo in minutes. Global reach with offices in Berlin, Warsaw and Sydney. Why: Making demo of any product is super hard and risky. As a former sales rep I feel the pain and I would love to use this product.
• Restaumatic - Online ordering system for restaurants. Over 4800 premises worldwide. Why: Restaurants want to generate their own client base instead of paying high commissions. It’s very natural for any business to keep clients close.
• Eleven Labs - tools to automatically dub your videos and podcasts into other languages while preserving the distinctive features of the speaker’s voice at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional solutions. Why: There is so much great content (podcasts, video) in local languages, not available to the global audience. This is unlocking their potential.
• Medusa - The Open Source Shopify Alternative. Leading JS eCommerce Platform on GitHub. The software is used by 10k projects and backed by 2k contributors. Why: Open Source is a winning strategy for so many tech industries. Medusa is the next gen eCommerce platform. Awesome traction.
• Refine - React-based, low-code framework for the rapid development of web applications and API-first apps integrations. Why: Vue Storefront, Open Loyalty, Medusa - these successful products help developers to work faster. With Refine it’s more general but the whole idea is the same. Awesome traction.
• Sagenso - Cybersecurity management. Automating the process of detecting and removing threats. Why: Security is super important yet super-hard to understand for business people. Sagenso is built for business users, helping them understand and manage security in their organizations.
• cyber_folks - One of the biggest hostings of WordPress, WooCommerce, and PrestaShop in the region. More than 300k clients, 40k of whom run online stores. We are strategic investors and advisors in the e-commerce area. Why: With one of the biggest clients base in the region and a super-ambitious Team cyber_folks is in the position to onboard many new companies to ecommerce.?

Follow-ons we did during 2022:

• Timerise - Solving important problems related to booking. API that you can use and adapt as you wish. The bridge round was dane with us and a couple of new Business Angels from Poland and Germany. Why: Seeing firm corporate clients building PoC with Timerise we are 100% sure about the product-market fit. It was so obvious for us to back up this Team once again.
• GraphQL Editor - Build a complex GraphQL API in no time using only your browser. The power of GraphQL is now at your fingertips! Why: We saw a lot of traction and great product market-fit. No brainer.

Happy to put you in contact with startups we have invested in.?

CU in 2023!