BeAngels and investiere, two organisations that facilitate investment in startups and scaleups, are joining forces to speed up fund-raising and the development of European startups. We have two ambitions: creating tomorrow’s new success stories in Europe and giving investors access to a new asset class in the private equity sector. Through an exclusive partnership, BeAngels will offer Belgian investors access to the state-of-the-art platform developed by investiere.ch, specialised in venture capital.
At the moment, there is a real challenge in Europe. It is difficult to create champions by investing sufficient financial means to grow companies, and this is especially true for certain countries. Most seed investments are made locally, but it is then necessary to be able to finance companies over several phases of development and in particular when they go international. Europe is therefore fragmented and capital flows are hampered by national borders and constraints, which does not facilitate cross-border investment.
The arrival of investiere.ch as an exclusive partner marks a new point in the history of BeAngels. The Belgian network will offer cross-border investments, mainly in Series A and Series B, via the platform of its Swiss partner, one of the best players in its category. Indeed, investiere.ch has chosen a different financing approach from that of traditional venture capital funds. First, they identify the most promising startups and analyse them in depth, just like an investment fund, and then present them to their online investors who decide where to invest. This procedure allows them to offer a quality dealflow, which investors can access to participate in the various rounds of financing starting from €10,000 per round of financing with a completely digital investment process.
The company raising the funds benefits from financing ranging from a few hundred thousand to several million euros. At present, the investment opportunities are mainly located in Switzerland, France and Germany. The investiere model gives individual investors access to co-investments with internationally renowned institutional and VC funds to which they would not normally have access.
BeAngels, which so far already offered its investors four different investment formulas, in order to be as close as possible to their wishes in terms of capital and time, adds a new string to its bow. BeAngels is an organisation that over 20 years has fundamentally evolved from a "simple" network of business angels to a support structure for fund-raising and investing in private equity, from the pre-seed stage to the pre-series A stage. Through the partnership with investiere, this range will now be extended beyond the borders of Belgium, up to Series B fund-raising. Today, the network has more than 370 affiliate members and is growing by 15% per year on the recruitment of new business angels. It facilitates between 30 and 40 fundraising events per year and aims to double this figure thanks to this growth lever.
Through this cross-border partnership, BeAngelsand investiere.ch seek to promote startups going international and the creation of European champions. "With its innovative approach to investing in private equity and its understanding of the mechanics of venture capital financing, investiere.ch seemed to us to be an exceptional partner for investors who wish to further diversify their investment portfolio in the real economy in multiple European countries. Access to investiere's financing platform becomes, moreover, an asset for the companies financed via our ecosystem because it gives them the possibility to finance the industrialisation and growth phases" says Claire Munck, CEO of BeAngels.
investiere.ch, bringing together 4,600 private investors on its platform, has so far made more than 100 investments, of which about 20 outside Switzerland. In Belgium, the first two investments are OncoDNAand S-Biomedic. "The partnership with BeAngels demonstrates the strong desire in Europe to work together and to innovate in the field of financing startups. Startups that are financed via our platform will be able to reach an even wider, international audience of investors. The BeAngels network will be able to offer its members an even greater project pipeline outside Belgium," says Chris Gay-Crosier, Head of International Investments at investiere.