How a micro fund works
Small money, precisely placed, builds real businesses.
A micro fund deploys small amounts of capital — usually a few thousand to a few tens of thousands — directly to founders who already have something working. It's not a grant, not a Series A, not equity. It's the pinch of salt that turns a working idea into a real business.
§ The basics
What is a micro fund?
A micro fund is a small pool of capital deployed in small tickets, often as loans rather than equity. Where traditional venture funds write €1M+ checks and take 15–25% of a company, a micro fund writes €5K–€15K checks and takes nothing but repayment.
The thesis is simple: most early businesses don't need a war-chest. They need the next batch of inventory, the next market test, the next hire. The right amount, at the right moment, changes the trajectory — without giving up ownership.
Small
€5K–€15K ticket sizes
Fast
Days, not months
Non-dilutive
A loan, not equity
§ History
Centuries of small capital.
Micro-lending isn't new. It's one of the oldest and most successful forms of entrepreneurial finance in history.
- 1800s
Irish loan funds & German credit unions
Jonathan Swift's loan funds in Ireland and Friedrich Raiffeisen's cooperatives in Germany lent tiny sums to farmers and craftspeople who banks ignored — funding generations of small businesses across rural Europe.
- 1976
Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
Muhammad Yunus lent $27 of his own money to 42 villagers — mostly women weavers. That experiment became Grameen Bank, disbursed billions in micro-loans, and won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Repayment rates: above 95%.
- 1990s–2000s
Kiva, Accion, BRAC
Micro-lending scaled globally. Millions of founders — overwhelmingly women — built bakeries, tailor shops, farms, and trading businesses on loans of $50 to $5,000. The data is overwhelming: small, well-placed capital works.
- Today
Micro funds for modern founders
The same logic applies to a founder with an MVP, early revenue, and a real next step. The instrument is just modernized: a fast, flexible loan instead of a slow, dilutive equity round.
§ The gap
Women receive less than 2% of VC funding.
In 2025, female-founded companies received less than 2% of global venture capital.
That number has barely moved in a decade. It's not because women build worse businesses — the data shows the opposite. It's because the system that allocates capital was built for, and by, someone else. Tickets are too big. Diligence is too slow. Networks are too closed.
A micro fund is a different shape entirely. Small enough to be deployed quickly to founders the VC machine overlooks. Essential enough to fund the next batch, the next market, the next hire. Repeated often enough that it starts to close the gap, one founder at a time.
<2%
of VC went to women in 2025
€5K–€15K
our ticket size
100%
equity you keep
§ Our approach
Keep 100% of your company.
At Salt to Sow, we deploy €5,000 to €15,000 to female founders with an MVP and traction. Every check is a loan, not an equity investment. That means:
- You retain 100% ownership of your company. No dilution, ever.
- You keep full control of your board, your roadmap, and your exits.
- You pick the payback track that fits your cash cycle — flat-rate or shared-upside.
- You get warm intros into our operator network across the US, EU, and China.