The FounderSeal (FS) is the seal that certifies your startup with data: a 0-100 score the platform calculates on its own, with public rules and verifiable data. At 40 points your project enters the dealflow the network’s investors receive as 🌱 Seed, and at 60 it moves up to 📈 Growth, the tier only reached with audited evidence. No committees, nobody’s recommendation, and no paying to appear. Here is the complete rubric.
It is calculated from the project’s data, not from how well its founder sells on a call. Anything self-declared reaches 40 — the Seed tier — and from there on every point demands audited evidence.
Every week with the Cockpit up to date adds; every week stalled subtracts. A project that gets abandoned leaves the dealflow without anyone having to throw it out.
They are written on this page and applied by code. No waiting list, no contacts, no exceptions for friends.
A 0-100 score every project on Madrid Ventures receives, calculated automatically by the platform from verifiable data. It has three blocks: fundamentals (20 points: the 10 project fields, the linked demo and the Cockpit initialised), consistency (20 points: 2 for each week with your cash figures up to date) and verified evidence (60 points: a ladder of 100 rungs audited with proof, split into 10 families with a cap per family). The dealflow the network’s investors receive has two tiers: 🌱 Seed from 40 points and 📈 Growth from 60. Neither number is arbitrary: 40 is exactly the ceiling of what a founder can declare on their own, so the Growth tier starts right where self-declared points run out — every point above it comes from audited evidence.
Yes, and there is no separate rubric per model: there is a single catalogue of rungs and a 60 means the same thing for everyone. What there are is several routes to the same 60 evidence points, because the 100 rungs add up to 629 between them and are split into 10 families of proof. If you sell to companies, your first customer counts as traction and a signed pilot with an organisation is a rung of its own, even when the pilot is unpaid. If you do research and do not invoice yet, what counts is independent validation (a trial, a certification, a peer-reviewed paper), a patent or utility model with its application number, and public funding granted — which already passed its own audit. None of those rungs requires users or revenue.
Because otherwise the 60 points would fill up by piling on easy rungs of the same kind, and a 60 would stop meaning what it means. Each family adds up to its cap (There is a product 12, Someone uses it 24, Someone pays 16, The money repeats 14, It grows on its own 10, Technical validation 16, Regulatory validation 16, Company and team 12, Outside money 16, Hard to copy 10) however many of its rungs you prove, so getting to the top requires proof across several different families: that there is a product, that someone uses it, that someone pays, that a third party has validated it. The catalogue is generous — 100 rungs so any business model finds its own — and the caps are what stops generosity from coming cheap.
How much evidence sits behind the number, and it is marked on every card. 🌱 Seed starts at 40 points, which is exactly the ceiling of what a founder can declare alone: a complete profile, a linked demo and the Cockpit up to date every week. A project in that tier may not have a single verified rung yet, which is why investors see the breakdown right next to it. 📈 Growth starts at 60: above 40 self-declared points run out, so every point comes from audited evidence. The rubric is the same for both — what changes is how much has been proven, not how it is scored.
No. The FounderSeal is calculated from the project’s data, not from anyone’s promises or from the plan they pay for. The Fundador Pro membership unlocks tools — the Simulator, the public funding map, the Copilot — but it does not add a single point by itself. And the evidence ladder is NOT behind the paywall: the free plan sends one rung a month for audit, so the bar can be cleared without paying, just more slowly. Nobody pays to appear in the dealflow: they earn it by building.
Because consistency expires on purpose: only weeks with your cash figures up to date within the last 10 count, so each week without updating the Cockpit is 2 points less — with no cliffs, and reversible by getting back into the routine. It is what guarantees investors they never see zombie projects. Verified evidence, by contrast, does not expire: what has been proven stays proven.
Every rung on the ladder demands evidence anyone can check: the URL of a working demo, a link to metrics, the company’s registration number in the commercial registry, the reference of an investment agreement. When you claim it, it sits pending and is audited the next day, before it adds a single point: if there are doubts, we tell you what is missing so you can fix it. False evidence voids the rung, its points, and can mean the account is closed.
No. It is an objective first filter that saves time, not advice. Madrid Ventures is not a crowdfunding platform nor an investment services firm: it does not hold funds, does not intermediate and does not recommend. The analysis and the decision are always the investor’s.
You still have the whole platform to get there: the breakdown tells you exactly what you are missing in each block, and your Route gives you one single next step at a time. The bar is not a door that closes, it is a thermometer — and it recalculates itself the moment you improve something.
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Calculate my FounderSeal for free →Madrid Ventures is not a crowdfunding platform nor an investment services firm. It does not hold funds, does not intermediate in transactions and does not provide financial advice. The FounderSeal is an informational filtering tool and under no circumstances an investment recommendation.