Route 1
Capital
- What you get
- A small pre-seed cheque
- What you pay up front
- Shares, through an ASAa SAFE or a priced round
- How we’re paid
- We hold shares for the long term
- Best for
- Founders who need runway
Pre-seed investment and product builds
Build it now.Pay when you raise.
Mote Software invests in early-stage startups and builds their products. We can write you a pre-seed cheque, or build your product and let you pay for it out of your first round. You can also have both.
What we do
Money, engineers, or both.
Early on, most founders are short of one of two things: money to keep going, or people to build the product. We can help with either. When we build, you pay us once you can, usually out of your first funding round.
Founder
We build
We invest
Product
Engineering
Capital
Network
Advice
We build
We design and build your product in milestones. You pay a reduced monthly rate while we work, or in some cases nothing, and settle the rest after you raise. The code, domains and accounts are in your company’s name from the first day.
We invest
We write small pre-seed cheques, usually alongside other angels, on an ASAa SAFE or a priced round. You get technical advice whenever you want it, and we don’t need a board seat.
Then you buy us out
When you raise, you settle the build fee in cash or shares. We're paid for our work, you keep the equity a development team would usually take, and your cap table stays with your founders and investors.
The two routes
Use one, or use both.
Each route has its own agreement, so taking one doesn’t commit you to the other.
Route 2
Build to Buyout
- What you get
- Your product, built by us
- What you pay up front
- A reduced monthly rate, or in some cases nothing
- How we’re paid
- You buy us out later, usually from a funding round
- Best for
- Founders who need a technical team
How a build runs
Six steps from first call to buyout.
We split every build into milestones. Either of us can stop at the end of any milestone, and you only ever owe for the work done.
We agree the scope
We break the work into milestones, such as technical setup, an MVP and your first paying users, and agree a day rate.
We build
Any of our time you don’t pay for each month is added to a deferred fee. It works like an IOU that grows as we go.
You own everything
Code, repositories, domains and accounts are in your company’s name from day one, so there’s nothing to transfer later.
Either of us can stop
You can end the work at any milestone. You only owe for what we’ve built, and it’s settled the same way as the rest.
We hand over
We write things down as we go and help you hire your first engineer, so your own team knows the product.
You buy us out
When you raise a qualifying round, reach the time limit or sell the company, whichever comes first. You can pay in cash, shares or a share of revenue.
Who we work with
A few companies at a time.
We often carry the cost of a build for a year or more, so we choose carefully. We do our best work with founders like these.
- You’re building software, and the product is central to the business.
- You can sell, to customers, to investors or to both.
- You can see a route to revenue or a funding round within 12 to 18 months.
- You want technical partners who care how the company does.
Tell us what you’re building.
A short email is plenty: what the product is, who it’s for and what you need. If we’re a good fit, we’ll send a scope, a day rate and draft terms, usually within a week.
Want the detail first? The FAQ covers every term and why we set it.