What is Amam Ventures?

Amam Ventures is an impact fund that invests with a gender lens. That means we finance existing companies (SMEs) that have identified a growth opportunity and need risk capital to grow and we finance startups that are building great things who needs capital to fuel their growth.

As a gender lens fund, do you only invest in women?

No, we don't only invest in women, but we do make a conscious effort to support women either as founders, as senior managers, women in the workforce, or those companies who have a product or service that specifically caters to women (this is called the 2X Challenge criteria). If your company satisfies one out of the 2X criteria, then let's talk!

At what stage in my company's life can I come and seek funding from Amam?

Amam provides financing for both startups and existing SMEs. If you are a startup, we typically provide financing for companies that have raised some investments before and need bridge financing for the company to go to the next level. Our sweet spot would be pre-Series A. If you are an SME, and you have identified an expansion opportunity and have a ready business plan and financial model, we can help you achieve your goals.

How much funding can I get?

Amam's ticket sizes start at $250,000 and go up to $1 million with an option to provide follow-on funding for an additional million (a total of $2 million per company).

Where does Amam invest?

For now, we only invest in Jordan. Soon we will be investing in Egypt.

Who is a fit for Amam Ventures?

For startups, this is for you if want to grow on revenue rather than on valuations and are keen to keep your equity for yourself. The company should be post-revenue and has the potential to reach profitability relatively fast, we do not fund ideas. For SMEs, this is for founders who have identified a growth opportunity, are ready to make it happen, and need financing to make that a reality but don't necessarily have sufficient collateral required by a bank.

Who isn't a fit for Amam Ventures?

This is NOT for companies who need a lot of investment and R&D before reaching commercialization.

What is our Investment Process?

We believe that founders should spend more time with customers than investors. To that end, we’ve created a transparent investment process designed to be fast, friendly, and focused and consists of four main stages: mandate fit assessment, concept note, IC vote, due diligence, and transaction closing. We share a detailed investment process with companies that pass the mandate fit stage.

What are the selection criteria at Amam Ventures?

We don’t collect mountains of data, require collateral or try to automate our investment process. We believe every entrepreneur and company is unique and every investment opportunity we receive is reviewed by a human and subject to human judgment, not machine or algorithms. Although we don’t have a set checklist, there are questions we’ll be asking ourselves while evaluating investment opportunities that increase or decrease our level of interest. While not an exhaustive list, here are a few in no particular order:

- Have they built, or been a part of building, something great in the past?

- Can the company realistically achieve profitability without further funding?

- Is there enough gross margin to create cash flow to reinvest in growth or will they NEED to raise again?

- What does the market look like and are there large adjacent markets if things go right?

- What story is their revenue growth telling?

- Would they be able to pay us back?

- What type of business does the entrepreneur really want to build?

- What have they done with the money they’ve raised and why do they keep having to raise more?

- How much money have they raised previously and are those investor’s incentives aligned with ours?

- What inflection point is this business facing that our capital can help to solve or accelerate?

- Do they share our values around building scalable, real businesses or are they just struggling to raise from VCs?

- What can they add to the Arcan community we are building?

What are our terms?

We are fully aware that fundraising can feel distracting, frustrating, time-consuming, and complicated. We've taken great care to ensure that nothing in our investment documents would prevent you from being able to raise another round of funding without raising any unwanted red flags. That said, we also take great care to support founders who have a focus on raising their revenue and profits, not only their next round of funding.

Do we take board seats?

For SMEs, we often help founders create their very first board and yes, we reserve the right to take a board seat in those types of companies. We don't typically ask for one for startups, but we might ask for an observer seat.

Do we co-invest?

Yes. We're an active lead investor and are open to working with other investors if they are willing to invest alongside us or sign on to the same investment terms we use.

Will you fund someone who has already raised capital?

Yes. While it is not a requirement, a lot of companies have raised some financing from an accelerator, angel investors, or institutional investors before approaching Amam. Sometimes existing investors prefer our terms and request to convert them into our investment document, though that is not required for us to invest.

How will Amam Ventures help you achieve your goals?

As part of Amam's financing, we create a Value Creation Roadmap to make a business fundamentals assessment that includes gender and ESG. Once we have an idea of where the business is at, we sit together with the founder to agree on where we would want the company to go and decide on specific action items to be implemented. This can include support on strategy, business and digital transformation, branding, marketing, talent acquisition, and access to networks. Throughout the process, we monitor and evaluate the progress to be able to pivot and change when need be.

How does Amam invest?

We provide capital to fuel the growth of existing businesses and startups using a type of financing that is called mezzanine financing. We combine financing with business growth support to help you achieve your goals.

What is mezzanine financing?

Mezzanine financing for SMEs means that it is a combination of debt and equity that is usually not secured by collateral and is repaid using a company's cash flows. We call this instrument Revenue Capital. For startups, a mezzanine means a quasi-equity type of instrument that we call a Redeemable Note, which is very similar to a convertible note but differs in the way the repayment is made.

Do you provide support for companies that do not qualify for funding?

YES! We have created a special platform “ARCAN” (Arabic for pillars), to strengthen 2X compliant SMEs in Jordan. Learn more about the Arcan programs here.

Are Amam Ventures and Arcan programs limited to specific industries?

No, we support all types of SMEs and starups across different sectors such as manufacturing, F&B, tourism, health & wellbeing, technology, creative industries, etc.