In this edition of Cosmic Conversations, I sat down with Oli Hammond, Partner at Fuel Ventures. He backs 10–12 startups a year through their EIS Seed Fund, investing £1m to £3m as a lead investor.

With a B2B focus and a sector-agnostic mindset, Oli pulls no punches when it comes to what he looks for and what founders should look for in return.

You can watch the full conversion above or take in the best bits in the short summary of Q&As below.

Q: What kind of companies do you invest in at Fuel Ventures?

We run two funds at Fuel. I focus on the EIS Seed Fund, our Scale Up Fund, which makes 10 to 12 investments a year. Cheques range from £1m to £3m, and we typically lead. We also have a SEIS pre-seed fund that backs 30 to 40 companies a year, but that’s run by a different team.

We’re sector-agnostic, we look at everything from fintech and enterprise software to marketplaces and gaming. But we steer clear of medtech, biotech, and pharma as they are too specialised, too long to exit, too capital intensive. Same goes for hardware and anything in the crypto/NFT/tokenisation space. Even our first stablecoin investment was about as far as we’ll go.

Q: What are the most important metrics you look at when evaluating seed-stage companies?

Revenue is a big one. As a seed fund, we’re used to investing pre-revenue, but now that our average ticket is £1.5m, we lean more towards post-revenue companies. That shift happened after we launched our pre-seed fund.

Revenue helps us mitigate due diligence risk. Every founder thinks their product is the next big thing, and they should, but revenue gives us an external signal. I want to speak to a paying customer and ask why are you paying for this? If they can articulate that clearly, that’s more valuable than a hundred slide decks.

It also helps with valuation. There’s a myth that VCs can pay whatever they want, but most of us operate with discipline. We’re accountable to LPs, we follow FCA guidelines, and equity matters. The difference between owning 5% or 10% at exit is huge.

Margin is another key one. We care about gross margin because we don’t want to face extreme dilution later. If you don’t have strong financials, even a successful company can leave us in a tricky spot.

Early churn is the third. If you’re losing customers early, we want to know why. What were they expecting? What did the product fail to deliver? That kind of insight is crucial.

Q: How do you think about product-market fit?

Honestly, we don’t use the term internally. It’s too broad. At seed stage, it’s very hard to prove product-market fit at any real scale. What we care about more is customer references. I want to speak to users who say, “This changed the game for us. We’d need four extra hires without it.”

That doesn’t mean they’ve hit perfect product-market fit, but it shows they’re on the right track. And that’s enough for us to place a bet.

If we do go in very early, pre-revenue, then it all comes down to founder quality. Generally, that means a previous exit. We want someone who’s seen the full cycle and knows what’s coming.

Q: What should founders look for in a VC?

This is where it gets tricky. A lot of advice in the industry comes from outlier founders who had five term sheets on the table and could play hardball. Most people aren’t in that position. They’re choosing between one or two offers, if that.

I’d never advocate taking advantage of that. But I would say to make sure you know what kind of business you want to build. Not all great businesses are VC-backable. If your goal is to build a profitable, £100m business, that’s amazing. But we’re not the right fund for that. We need outlier returns.

We’re looking for founders who want to build big, fast-growing companies, usually with some burn. If that’s not what you’re aiming for, you might be better off bootstrapping or finding another route.

Q: Can founders make themselves more investable even before they raise?

Yes, but with a caveat. Building a personal brand, sending monthly updates, creating excitement, all that makes me more likely to follow up. But it won’t override real concerns about the business.

I want to work with confident, assured founders who also show humility. People I’d be proud to introduce to our investor network. That kind of behaviour builds trust. But it still must be backed up by a credible product, market, and plan.

Q: When should founders step away from founder-led sales?

Between seed and Series A, I still back founder-led sales. No one sells like the founder. What founders struggle with is hiring that first senior commercial lead. You either hire for logo, someone from a big name who’s used to late-stage sales, or hire for price, and end up hiring someone junior you hope will step up.

If you hire for price, you usually hire twice. And ramp time is steep in early-stage startups. Even good salespeople often need 6-8 months to get up to speed, which you may not have.

So my advice is, if you’re not a natural salesperson, acknowledge that and build around it early. Maybe that means bringing on a commercially minded co-founder. But between seed and Series A, founder-led is still the way to go.

Key takeaways from this Cosmic Conversation:

• Hiring the wrong commercial lead early can cost you time and traction.
• Revenue is a key signal, it validates demand, helps with valuation, and mitigates due diligence risk.
• Gross margin matters early, poor financials now can mean painful dilution later.
• Customer references are more useful than the term “product-market fit.”
• Most founders won’t be choosing between five term sheets, be realistic about VC fit.
• Know your business model: not every great company needs venture capital.
• Founder branding helps, but it won’t overcome fundamental business issues.
• Founder-led sales is still the best route between seed and Series A.

If you enjoyed this conversation with Oli, check out our other recent Cosmic Conversations with leading VCs.

Connect with Oli Hammond on LinkedIn and find out more about Fuel Ventures.