Partner
We take equity off a formula, not off a hunch.
There is no published benchmark anywhere for what a fee discount should buy in equity — not in the UK, not anywhere. Every firm doing this names the model and publishes no numbers. So here is ours, with the arithmetic.
The formula
equity % = ( fees foregone ÷ agreed pre-money valuation ) × a risk multiple
Fees foregone is the full list price of the build minus the cash you actually pay. It is what we are genuinely investing — margin we would have earned on paying work, and capacity we cannot sell to anyone else.
The pre-money valuation is agreed in writing before any work starts. Never afterwards.
The band is 1% to 8%, and we cap ourselves at 10%
Three things move it inside that band, and they are the only three.
01
How much cash you pay
The more cash, the smaller the stake. Fees foregone is the input, so paying more of the build in cash directly shrinks it.
02
The agreed valuation
Agreed in writing before any work starts, never after. A higher valuation means a smaller stake for the same work.
03
How long we stay involved
A build-and-hand-over is not the same commitment as building and then running it for two years.
A worked example
What it looks like with real numbers
Plus the Run tier in cash from go-live. The multiple exists because the shares are illiquid for five to ten years, the modal outcome is that they are worth nothing, and we control the build quality but not whether anyone wants the product. We will talk you through how we set it — we just don’t publish it, because it is the one number that is genuinely a judgement rather than a rate.
The terms
What if you take the equity and disappear?
It is the right question, and the protections against it are entirely ours to give — so we give them up front rather than negotiating them once you have asked.
- Shares vest against delivery milestones, not time. If we stop delivering, we stop earning.
- Non-voting. We are not on your board and we do not want to be.
- You have a buy-back right at a pre-agreed price, whenever you want us off the cap table.
For context
Anyone anchoring you on 30% is selling a different product
US venture studios take 15–50% at incorporation, typically 30–40% — but they originate the idea and write a cheque. We do neither. The real reference points are the accelerator and advisory bands: Y Combinator 7%, Entrepreneur First 8%, Antler UK 8.5%.
| What they contribute | Typical stake | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Idea, build, capital and the founding team | 30–90% | Blenheim Chalcot, Rocket Internet, Hexa |
| Capital plus studio services | 20–25% | High Alpha |
| Capital, programme and network | 6–8.5% | Y Combinator 7%, Entrepreneur First 8%, Antler UK 8.5% |
| Build and technical leadership, no capital | 1%–8% | Us. No published benchmark exists for this shape. |
| Advisory or fractional time only | 0.1–1% | FAST v3; SeedLegals UK median 1% |
We do not originate the idea and we do not write you a cheque. That is why the accelerator and advisory bands are the honest comparison, and the studio average is not.
Before you ask
Cash still has to clear our cost floor
The discount comes out of our margin, never out of our pocket. Whatever you pay in cash has to at least cover the cost of the people doing the work — below that line we would not be investing our time in you, we would be lending you money with no agreement to get it back. That is a different business and we are not in it.
It is also why we do two or three of these a year and no more. It is not scarcity marketing; it is that every Partner build takes a delivery slot that a paying build would otherwise have.
| Route | Run commitment | Build price |
|---|---|---|
| Run only | 12 months | By deal |
| Build only | No Run agreement | Full |
| Build + Run | 12 months | −10% |
| Build + Run | 24 months | −20% |
| Build + Run | 36 months | −20% |
| Partner | 24 months, plus a small stake | By deal |
Think you’re a Partner case?
Tell us what you’re building and roughly where the valuation sits. We will run the formula in front of you and say yes or no quickly.