Most founders believe their early equity funding options are limited to 'friends & family', angels or VCs.
But there is a 4th funding option.
In our view it offers the best combination of value-add investor, ticket size and retention of control: Operator Syndicates. These are groups of current or ex startup founders and employees who invest together in early-stage companies.
The advantages to a founder:
- Bigger ticket size than an angel investor - typically six to seven figures
- Time-efficient - you'll normally present to the whole group once or meet with the syndicate lead who then markets your company to the rest of the group
- Value-add - you'll have a group of individuals in the syndicate who have experience in various aspects of building and scaling startups
- Strong networks - syndicates tend to have good relationships with VCs and other angels who they share deal flow with - so can be useful for filling out the rest of your round or future rounds
- Founder-friendly terms - they are unlikely to negotiate on valuation or other terms such as board seats
Syndicates are a critical element of the capital raising process which are often overlooked or, worse still, you might not even know of.
We’ve created the ultimate Operator Syndicate Database worldwide that we will continue to add to too.
Check it out here:
Introducing
Operator Syndicate