Question 1

What is Venture Capital as a Service?

Accepted Answer

An external investment team builds and operates a corporate venture programme on your behalf - thesis, vehicle, sourcing, diligence, portfolio management and reporting - while you keep strategic control and the commercial relationship with the companies. You get the discipline of a fund without hiring the team of a fund.

Question 2

Why not just build a CVC team internally?

Accepted Answer

You can, and some should. It takes 12 to 18 months to hire, and the resulting unit depends on the executive who sponsored it: a change of CEO or a bad quarter is what usually ends it, not a bad investment. An operated programme has its own mandate and its own governance, which is what lets it survive a budget cycle.

Question 3

What does an LP get that a traditional fund does not offer?

Accepted Answer

Exposure to strategies where a corporate is already the commercial channel, which changes the risk profile of the portfolio company: it has a named route to revenue at entry rather than a hypothesis about one. Alongside that, a co-investment framework and reporting built for institutional governance.

Question 4

What stage do you invest at?

Accepted Answer

What we can say plainly: we invest where a corporate partner in our network is a credible customer or channel for what you have built.

Question 5

What is the 6S model?

Accepted Answer

The six stages a vehicle passes through: Seeking Capital, Sourcing, Seeding, Scaling, Selling and Scoring. It is a description of the fund lifecycle rather than a marketing framework: each stage has its own outcomes, and Scoring feeds back into where the next euro is allocated.

Question 6

How is this different from hiring a consultancy?

Accepted Answer

A consultancy hands you a recommendation and you staff it. We operate the programme: we source, we run diligence, we write the investment memo, we sit on the board and we produce the quarterly reporting. The engagement is measured on portfolio outcomes, not on a deliverable being accepted.

Question 7

How long before the first investment?

Accepted Answer

Thesis design takes 4 to 8 weeks. Vehicle structuring runs 6 to 12 weeks in parallel with sourcing, so a first investment is typically possible within the first two quarters. Cross-border structuring adds time, and we would rather say so at the outset than discover it at signing.

Question 8

What reporting do you provide?

Accepted Answer

Quarterly portfolio and pipeline reporting with consistent ROI and impact scoring across vehicles, so vintages are comparable. Scoring is the sixth step of our investment model rather than a reporting afterthought, which is what makes the numbers comparable in the first place.

Question 9

Which geographies do you back?

Accepted Answer

France and Europe primarily, plus Southeast Asia, Singapore and Vietnam in particular. A European company with a credible Southeast Asian expansion path is squarely in scope, and it is one of the few things we can genuinely help with rather than just fund.

Question 10

How do you source companies?

Accepted Answer

Networks, corporate partnerships and data-driven scouting in the target sectors. The corporate relationship is itself a sourcing channel: the companies already selling into an industry are visible to the incumbents in it long before they are visible to a generalist fund.

Question 11

Which sectors do you cover?

Accepted Answer

InsurTech, ImpactTech and IndustryTech are the three vehicles. The firm also uses a broader "4i" framing that includes InvestTech, which appears in the portfolio. If your sector is not on that list, we are probably the wrong partner and will say so early.

Question 12

Who actually decides on an investment?

Accepted Answer

The investment committee, whose composition is agreed during structuring and normally includes the corporate. Mandalore sources, diligences and recommends; the committee decides. You keep the strategic veto without having to staff an investment team to exercise it.

Question 13

What is the track record?

Accepted Answer

What is public today: the Mon Petit Placement stake was sold to Malakoff Humanis, announced May 2025.

Question 14

Do you lead rounds?

Accepted Answer

We lead and structure initial investments where the thesis fits, and we co-invest where another lead is better placed. If we are not leading, we will tell you what we can add to the round rather than take an allocation for the sake of it.

Question 15

What does diligence cover?

Accepted Answer

Commercial, technical and legal. The technical review is run by people who build software and, for IndustryTech, by a partner who has manufactured hardware at volume: the question is what the system does when the third-party API is down, and what the bill of materials looks like at scale.

Question 16

Where do you operate?

Accepted Answer

Paris, Lyon and Luxembourg in Europe, with an operating network into Singapore and Southeast Asia. The corridor between the two is deliberate: European industrial depth on one side, Southeast Asian growth on the other, and cross-border structuring that most single-market funds cannot offer.

Question 17

What does a programme cost?

Accepted Answer

In practice the structure is set per mandate and discussed in the first conversation.

Question 18

What is the minimum commitment?

Accepted Answer

It varies by vehicle; tell us your range in the LP form and we will say quickly whether there is a fit.

Question 19

What should I send you?

Accepted Answer

Start with the one-line pitch in the form: what you do, for whom, and why now. If it fits, we will ask for a deck and the two or three metrics that matter for your model. Please do not send a data room to a first contact: nobody reads it, and it slows down the answer you want.

Question 20

How is impact scored?

Accepted Answer

With a consistent framework applied across vehicles so vintages stay comparable, reported quarterly alongside financial performance rather than in a separate annual document nobody reads next to the numbers.

Question 21

Who is behind Mandalore Partners?

Accepted Answer

Minh Q. Tran founded the firm and designed the VCaaS model. The partner bench is operator-heavy rather than analyst-heavy: Sonny Vu founded Misfit Wearables and sold it to Fossil Group; Sabine Vanderlinden spent twenty years in insurance including at Lloyd's of London. The full team is on the team page.

Question 22

Do we need a dedicated fund, or can we start smaller?

Accepted Answer

Both work. A dedicated vehicle gives the cleanest governance and the clearest signal to founders. A smaller start, co-investing alongside an existing Mandalore vehicle, is a reasonable way to test the thesis before committing to structuring costs.

Question 23

Can we co-invest directly?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Co-investment rights and the allocation process are set out in the vehicle documentation. LPs who want to build direct exposure in a sector generally use this rather than the fund allocation alone.

Question 24

What happens after I pitch?

Accepted Answer

A first read against the thesis, then a call if there is a fit. From there: commercial, technical and legal diligence, an investment memo, and a committee decision.

Question 25

How do you handle conflicts between mandates?

Accepted Answer

Through the conflict-of-interest framework agreed during structuring: allocation rules between vehicles, disclosure obligations, and recusal where a partner sits on both sides. Operating several corporate mandates in adjacent sectors makes this a live question, not a theoretical one.

Question 26

Do you invest your own capital?

Accepted Answer

We operate vehicles funded by corporates, LPs and co-investors. The specific alignment arrangement - management fee, carry, and any GP commitment - is set per mandate and discussed openly in a first conversation, because it is the question a serious LP asks first.

Question 27

How does this reach our business units, not just the innovation team?

Accepted Answer

Through commercial pilots, which are part of the portfolio management module rather than an afterthought. A portfolio company that never gets in front of a business unit is a financial holding, not a venture programme, and that gap is the most common reason corporate venture stops being funded.

Question 28

How is the team aligned with LPs?

Accepted Answer

Through the standard instruments - management fee, carried interest and GP commitment - set per vehicle. We would rather walk through the actual terms in a call than publish a summary that turns out not to describe the vehicle you are looking at.

Question 29

Beyond the cheque, what do I actually get?

Accepted Answer

An introduction to the corporate behind the vehicle, and the internal work to turn that into a pilot. That is the honest headline: we are useful when a large organisation is a plausible customer or channel for you. If your growth does not depend on that, a generalist fund may serve you better.

Question 30

How long is a typical hold?

Accepted Answer

What is not negotiable is that exits are run as a prepared process rather than reactively, which is the fifth stage of the model.

Question 31

What does the name mean?

Accepted Answer

Mandalore is the firm's own name rather than an acronym or a portfolio reference. If there is an origin story worth telling, it belongs here: it is a question people actually ask on first calls.

Question 32

We already have a CVC. Is there anything here for us?

Accepted Answer

Sometimes. The common cases are a second vehicle in a sector or geography your team does not cover, extra sourcing capacity into Southeast Asia, or taking over reporting and scoring so your team can spend its time on portfolio work. If none of those is a real gap, you do not need us.

Question 33

How do you handle ESG and impact reporting?

Accepted Answer

Impact scoring is built into the investment model rather than bolted on, and one of our portfolio companies builds impact measurement infrastructure. For the ImpactTech vehicle specifically, we back companies whose outcome is produced by the business model rather than reported alongside it.

Question 34

Do you take board seats?

Accepted Answer

A board or observer seat where we lead, with a quarterly operating rhythm. We are not looking to run your company; we are looking to be the person who takes the call when a corporate procurement process stalls, which happens more often than founders expect.

Question 35

How is Venture Building different from investing?

Accepted Answer

Venture Building starts from a corporate's asset or market position and creates a company around it, rather than finding an existing company to back. It suits a corporate that has a distribution advantage nobody in the market is currently exploiting.

Question 36

How do I get in touch?

Accepted Answer

Book a 30-minute call directly, or write to contact@mandalorepartners.com. Using the form that matches your situation - corporate, LP or founder - gets you to the right person faster, because it routes to whoever actually covers that.

Question 37

What happens to the portfolio if we end the mandate?

Accepted Answer

The vehicle and its holdings are yours; the operating agreement sets out transfer and wind-down terms, including how positions are managed to exit. This is settled during structuring rather than negotiated under pressure later, which is the point of settling it during structuring.

Question 38

How do you manage the risk of a Europe to Southeast Asia strategy?

Accepted Answer

With presence on both sides and cross-border structuring handled at vehicle level rather than deal by deal. The corridor is a source of opportunity and of currency, regulatory and governance risk in equal measure; treating it as purely an opportunity is how funds get caught out there.

Question 39

What if you say no?

Accepted Answer

We will say it clearly and give you the reason. A vague no costs a founder weeks of follow-up on something that was never going to happen. If the reason is stage or sector rather than the company, we will say that too: it is a different piece of information.

Question 40

What does the corporate see, and when?

Accepted Answer

Quarterly portfolio and pipeline reporting, board-ready, in a format that works for both an investment committee and a CSR report. The programme has to be defensible at budget time by someone who was not in the room for the investment decisions, and the reporting is built for that person.

Question 41

Who owns the vehicle and the stakes?

Accepted Answer

The vehicle and its stakes belong to the corporate or to the fund that funds them. Mandalore Partners operates them.

Questions we are actually asked.

Common questions

Questions corporates ask

Questions LPs ask

Questions founders ask

The investment process

Questions we are actually asked.

Common questions

What is Venture Capital as a Service?+

How is this different from hiring a consultancy?+

Which sectors do you cover?+

Where do you operate?+

Who is behind Mandalore Partners?+

Do you invest your own capital?+

What does the name mean?+

How do I get in touch?+

Questions corporates ask

Why not just build a CVC team internally?+

How long before the first investment?+

Who actually decides on an investment?+

What does a programme cost?+

Do we need a dedicated fund, or can we start smaller?+

How does this reach our business units, not just the innovation team?+

We already have a CVC. Is there anything here for us?+

What happens to the portfolio if we end the mandate?+

Who owns the vehicle and the stakes?+

Questions LPs ask

What does an LP get that a traditional fund does not offer?+

What reporting do you provide?+

What is the track record?+

What is the minimum commitment?+

Can we co-invest directly?+

How is the team aligned with LPs?+

How do you handle ESG and impact reporting?+

How do you manage the risk of a Europe to Southeast Asia strategy?+

Questions founders ask

What stage do you invest at?+

Which geographies do you back?+

Do you lead rounds?+

What should I send you?+

What happens after I pitch?+

Beyond the cheque, what do I actually get?+

Do you take board seats?+

What if you say no?+

The investment process

What is the 6S model?+

How do you source companies?+

What does diligence cover?+

How is impact scored?+

How do you handle conflicts between mandates?+

How long is a typical hold?+

How is Venture Building different from investing?+

What does the corporate see, and when?+