100 Companies
August 3rd, 2021One of my emergent post-covid goals is to invest in 100 companies over the next three years. The key aim is to learn, to have fun and a bit of adventure. And of course make some money along the way.
Now the problem with that sort of number of companies (and ambition) is that that is a monumental undertaking. I don’t have the capacity to find, sort, filter and do that many deals. However the way I am addressing it, is by finding a few funds or syndicates, that enable me to do that.
The first is FundersClub, FundersClub shares direct investments and fund investments throughout the year. Of note is they do a Y Combinator round each year, going in to a selection of Y Combinator companies.
The second is, Angel Syndicates, finding a few managers who I think will sniff out great deals. You join their syndicate and those deals are shared with you. You can either back every deal they do or back individual deals as they come through.
The third will be a mix of private direct deals, either sourced by myself or from my networks. I haven’t used either Assure or RUV yet for structuring a deal. The former lets you put together a SPV for a direct deal, RUV also offers the same sort of service. Letting you and a few friends invest together.
Separately, I will continue to explore the secondary markets, follow on into prior investments. The secondary space has a bunch of innovation. Maybe I’ll do a follow up post on that and the opportunities it presents.
The benefit of the approach above is, low cognitive load but also gets me in to companies I might not have because of my own selection bias, with this approach I tap in to a bunch of different thinkers who would tackle opportunities I wouldn’t take a second look at.
For me a big driver of this is learning, taking a small stake typically means there is no real engagement with the firms but you do get access to updates. However some of the private deals will mean more involvement. But so, by getting such an expanse of companies and an understanding of where they’re investing, challenges they’re facing, seeing the public view vs behind the scenes view and how their journey evolves. That is a bunch of learning!
As we navigate the emergent economy, what better way than to get a broad view from a bunch of companies.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 2:04 am. 