How Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs saves hundreds of thousands of euros and helps their portfolio startups
Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs built a platform that provides useful resources for founders and connects them with best-in-class agencies and freelancers
TL;DR
The platform for startup founders allows Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs to foster collaboration among founders and give them centralized access to a growing database of resources as well as generate significant amounts of savings through partnerships and discount deals with service providers listed on the platform.
Introduction
Atlantic Labs and FoodLabs are Berlin-based early stage venture capital firms with a large portfolio of startups from a variety of industries.
Just over a year ago, they realized that there was a shared pattern in some of the common questions and problems that startup founders encounter in the early stages of their journey (e.g. establishing a legal structure, introducing a brand, etc.). Leveraging their vast knowledge and connections in the field, Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs decided to build a central hub that would provide their portfolio founders with useful resources as well as access to various service providers that could help them at different stages of their growth.
We spoke to Carolina Decastri, VC Platform Engagement Lead at Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs to learn more about the platform and how it came to life.
Carolina Decastri
VC Platform Engagement Lead, Atlantic Labs & FoodLabsThe challenges
When Carolina and her team were clear on their requirements for the platform, they tried out several tools, but couldnβt find the one that would allow implementing some of the key features they needed. One of them being an advanced user access and edit permissions system that would allow them to define what each user group sees and is able to edit within the platform.
Another requirement Carolinaβs team had was to be able to organize their resources in a way that made sense for their customers, choosing what to display on different sections of the platform.
ο»ΏAdditionally, they wanted freedom and flexibility to customize the look and feel and make it easy to interact with, allowing users to submit new information and make changes whenever they needed.
Solution
The Softr/Airtable combination allowed Carolina and her team to address all the challenges mentioned above and even incorporate some additional features that hadnβt been planned initially.
"We needed a tool that could be easy to use, accessible, and engaging while providing different levels of access based on the user type (e.g. founder vs. employees vs. core team) and that could be easily integrated into our tools stack. Softr not only ticked all these boxes but also allowed us to display our resources in a customizable (e.g. with our logos and color scheme) and visually-appealing way."
Carolina Decastri, VC Platform Engagement Lead, Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs
In particular, they can now offer resources to founders in different formats such as articles, videos, directories, downloadable documents and more. The team has also added ratings and comments to the system to allow founders to review their experiences with different service providers and submit further recommendations.
The platform also allows for better engagement among founders, who can independently browse through the other portfolio members and sign up for events that are targeted at their sector and stage.
Results and next steps
For Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs, the key metric to measure the success of the platform is engagement, and, for the past month only, theyβve registered over 8k engagement events. Moreover, they were able to generate hundreds of thousands of euros in savings via strategic partnership agreements and major discounts from service providers who wanted to get listed on the platform.
Currently, Carolina and her team are working on the second version of the platform, which should provide an even better user experience and a higher quality of content.
