French startup Roundtable has raised $3.2 million (€3 million) in funding from 100 business angels. This is a fairly large private investor group, but that’s because Roundtable runs an angel investment platform for European startups. With the help of eFounders, the company handles administrative, legal, and financial processes related to startup investments.
Roundtable is not the first investment platform focused on investing in startups. In particular, AngelList popularized the concept of group investments with AngelList Syndicates. Basically, angel investors bring investment opportunities to the platform, and other angels can follow the lead angel on a deal-by-deal basis.
AngelList isn’t the only one promoting investment in startups. For example, in the UK, Seedrs and Odin also manage funding deals for startups.
Roundtable is specifically focused on European startups and works particularly well for startups based in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. If an investor wishes to purchase shares in a start-up company, Roundtable will set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) based in France or Luxembourg. The angel in charge of the SPV can decide to allocate Carrie her interest from the vehicle’s other investors.
The platform currently charges 1% of the amount collected by the vehicle, with a minimum of €5,000 and a maximum of €15,000. In addition, a commission is charged for secondary sales. So far, Roundtable has already processed over 100 deals, so the company’s first few months are going pretty well. This equates to €50 million of assets under management.
Due to the platform’s social features, influential angels are making deals and leveraging their network to raise more money. The platform’s most active angels include Roxanne Varza, who created her community of angels for women businesses, Pieter-Jan Bouten of the Belgian tech ecosystem, Christopher Zemina of the German/Austrian region, and Olivier, co-founder of his Aircall in Spain. Pailhes, Paul and others.such as
Many of these angels invested in Roundtable itself. And he already had one exit from his investment in Roundtable — Space tug startup Launcher was acquired by Vast (see his TechCrunch coverage of the deal).
Overall, this isn’t the biggest funding round of the year. But I am confident that roundtables will become more and more the topic of investment conversations going forward.
Image credit: round table
