Our startup company was looking for a couple of million of Series A financing, having already self-funded our seed round. We met with Jake Kennedy of Helios Capital Investments, who promised to invest the money as soon as we jump through a few of his hoops.
What should have taken 3-4 weeks became a five-month odyssey of paperwork, product testing, and negotiations over the smallest of contractual details. Our only concern was "did Helios actually have the money to invest?" Jake assured us he had just closed a separate $8.8 million real estate deal during our negotiations, and that a couple of million dollars was no big deal. But for a supposed venture capitalist who is supposed to calculated risks, Jake wanted no part of any economic risk whatsoever.
Once all paperwork had been agreed to, and all that was left to do was final document signatures to seal the deal, Jake called us up and admitted he didn't have the money. We surmise that instead of reaching out to wealthy individuals as his investors, he was actually trying to get a bank (or banks) to fund the multi-million investment. When he was ultimately rejected by those banks, he had no choice but to admit he never had any money in the first place.
While we didn't lose any real money with Helios, what we did lose was five months of very valuable time - time that could have spent building our product for the masses, marketing it, and selling it. We can't get this time back unfortunately. I would advise anyone who comes across Helios Capital Investments to steer clear, no matter how good the sales pitch might be.
Photos added are straight from the Helios website.
Date of experience: September 4, 2024
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