At Web Summit 2025, the Beta-i team spoke with investors from across the venture spectrum to understand what truly drives investment decisions today. Despite differences in geography, portfolio focus, and investment stage, the answers were remarkably aligned. The next generation of investment won’t be driven by hype cycles but by founders with depth, products with purpose, and markets with meaning.
Drawing from those conversations, here’s what investors say determines whether they choose one startup over another and, super important, how they spot innovation that genuinely matters.
What makes Investors choose one Startup over another?
The Founding Team Comes First
When investors look at early-stage companies, they see uncertainty everywhere — markets shift, business models adjust, and products evolve. But one thing must remain stable:
A capable, driven, and experienced founding team. We gathered these three attributes are key: Domain expertise; Operational experience; Learning capacity.
A Differentiated Product and evidence of real-world use
Is it meaningfully different? Does it target a huge market or create a new one? And also, how are you on implementation? Proof beats potential here, when we’re talking about investment attraction.
Diversity, Global Perspective, and Purpose
Ah, the purpose. This is what moves the world, isn’t it? That should be why diverse founding teams with global insight and a personal connection to the problem stand out.
How Investors Identify Innovation that truly matters (yes, that’s is exactly how we framed the question)
Market mapping & Networking
Some investor go on a deep analysis of emerging markets, mapping key players, identifying gaps. Others focus more on their network to figure out where the next investment actually is.
Founders with a personal connection to the problem
And this is where things get personal. Investment for some happens when the lived experience leads to more relevant and motivated solutions.
We can conclude by these insights that Impactful Innovation has a human core. So you see, Investors are backing founders who (even if backed by AI) deeply understand the problems they’re solving and are focusing on solutions that truly matter.
Great news: we published the video recordings of these conversations in our LinkedIn and Instagram profiles, if you’d like to take a look!