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We believe in ‘investing in lines, not dots” and are open to following/getting to know/referring you before our 25K MRR mark. We might invest as well before the <25K MRR mark. However, we might take our time (and we want to get to know you) as this is not our sweet spot. Most of all, we invest in people with a vision, not companies. The stronger the vision, the better. We are a bit contrarian in the sense that growth & traction are not unimportant for us (as proof of early market validation) but never will be our primary investment filter, as the vision is. If we miss opportunities, so be it. Also, we are SaaS investors but occasionally invest outside our sweet spot if we see a great vision. To illustrate: Fourth Wall (animation company, UK) and Stayhaven (marketplace, USA), two recently backed 4D companies.
Yes, absolutely. Even if we feel we are not the right investor and/or not the right stage and/or geography, for your company, we can refer you to some trusted parties who might be a better fit.
Angel ticket of 4D Ventures BV; 35K EUR. (We consider this as a 'get-to-know' ticket). We invest alone.
With our trusted partner www.finwise.com we can invest between 100K EUR and 250K EUR through an SPV.
We can make an angel syndicate coalition with our trusted partner angelschool through an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), creating just one line in your cap table, for amounts from 250K EUR EUR till around 1 mio EUR-ish. Typically in this stage we will co-invest with a VC who wil take the lead/set the terms.
Yes. But we will never lead (set the terms) of bigger (>500K EUR) rounds and will only follow-on with a lead investor (and provided we are OK with the terms). Typically we will call our broader investment base and syndicate your deal.
We are not a fund, so we are not a VC. (We do like to co-invest/work together with VC's). We invest our own capital (so we don't have LP's). It also means no exit pressure, patient capital. You could say we are angel investors as our first ticket/position will be low (in comparison to a VC fund), 35K-EUR ish, however we are professional investors and do perform our own due diligence, write an investment memo etc. We can also act as a syndicate, since we have a broader investment network that likes to co-invest with us on a deal per deal basis. We will, however, only invite our investor basis for follow-on tickets, after we have worked for some time together with our invested companies. We are very open to co-invest through syndication with other other angel groups/VC's.
We come from a non-operator, non-start-up background (even if we created our own traditional companies and are familiar with building successful and failed companies that we see as learning opportunities). So we are NOT ex-founders nor operators (we wished we were, but we are not). This said, as professional investors, our added value is mainly by opening doors to more significant/later-stage investors (VCs/bigger angel syndicates) within our trusted network. Also, we don't believe too much in "smart money"; we feel this might (of course, there are exceptions) be a bit 'overrated' within our industry. It's our philosophy to back solid and visionary founders. These founders usually only need a little coaching/advice/intros. This said, for our founders, we are only one WhatsApp/slack message/phone call away and love to help where we can. We are particularly proud that we led, for instance, half of the investment round (>500K £) of Fourth Wall where we really could make THE difference for that company. The founder's vision gave us the extra drive to pick up our phone literally and accelerated their funding process.
Thomas has been angel investing since 2017. Before becoming a solo GP in late 2022, I had one portfolio returner (>10 X) , Myskillcamp, through a secondary transaction in a period of less than five years. I got a second exit, Fractory , through another secondary transaction in less than four years. Another company, Cambri.io, went straight from seed to series A in less than two years. Most importantly, I also got failures I could learn from; this helped my investment thesis sharpen and made me the better (fingers crossed) professional investor I am today.