Graduateland, the startup focusing on job listings at Universities all over Europe, just announced an invest by Accelerace. Trendsonline breaks the news, and the investment is in “the millions” (DKK) according to their sources. Update: ArticStartup reports that the investment is “in the millions in Danish Kroner, but in the [hundred-]thousands in Euros”.
Trendsonline reports that prior to the investment Graduateland had long negotiation with both other investment-funds and angel investors, but they ended up with Accelerace, which could commit to the right terms and conditions.
“We are the proud and very happy that Accelerace has chosen to invest in us. Their help means that we can accelerate our product and service development.” says Jens Reimer Olesen, CEO, to Trendsonline.dk
Graduateland has been one of the successful startups in the last couple of years, and have until now been bootstrapped and managed without any real* outside investments.
“Graduateland is the startup in Accelerace’s history that has managed to come the furthest by it’s own means. They had a strong focus on building a successful sales organisation from the start, something other startups can learn from. With this setup they don’t have to prove to us investors that they can achieve sales, but rather how much sales!” says Jesper Knudsen to Trendsonline.dk
Speculations are that the strong sales process and success without funding made the negotions with potential VCs and angels longer, as the valuation is usually harder to estimate when a startup already has substancial revenue.
Accelerace is one of the most active investors in this region, having by itself or together with others (usually SEED Capital) also invested in companies such as Bownty, The Eye Tribe and Conferize.
*Only investment listed is a small (€15K) on their CrunchBase profile, which most likely just is the basic investment when starting up the company.
