For the first time in history, EstBAN and newly formed Latvian Business Angels Network LatBAN held a joint two-day Angel Camp on 18-19th of August 2014.
The highest concentration of regional angel funding was present when more than 90 participants from Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Poland gathered together to learn the best practices of angel investing, network and discuss the cross-border investments into startups. In addition, the Angel Camp offered the stage for Buildit Accelerator for their first ever Demo Day.
One of the highlights of the Camp was signing the cooperation agreement between EstBAN and LatBAN by Ivar Siimar and Jānis Rancāns to develop the angel market and cross-border investment practice. The official procedure was witnessed by more than 40 business angels and numerous representatives of Latvian media.
The key-note speaker Petri Lehmuskoski set the focus for the whole Camp by presenting his experience in Angel Investment Strategies. Every business must have a strategy and angel investing is business to reach positive returns.
The panel involved angels from Estonia (Ivar Siimar and Riivo Anton, EstBAN), Finland (Petri Lehmuskoski and Jaakko Salminen, FiBAN) and Latvia (Andris Berzins, LatBAN) – all discussing the opportunities to increase syndicated investments in the Nordic-Baltic region. Jeanette Andersson from Sweden sent her greetings and proposed some concrete measures to attract Baltic countries via shared dealflow in Gust, agreed standards and joint events to Nordic angels cooperation. All panelists agreed that building the trust between individual angel investors was a key to shared deals, and joint events like Camp was a perfect bridge for building the trust.
The strategy of new funding solutions was also presented by Pirko Konsa from the Estonian Development Fund and Andrus Treier from KredEx – the former focussing on a new incubators’ model and the latter confirming the plan of setting up a business angels co-investment fund in cooperation with EIF, still in the current year. Henri Laupmaa presented a new crowdfunding platform Fundwise.me to involve also business angels to take the lead investor’s role, and Rain Rannu together with Veljo Otsason opened up their angel investment portfolio in Moby Solutions case. Rain and Veljo outlined their criteria in selecting the companies they understand and are able to contribute to.
Tiit Paananen as a tech (and beer) enthusiast opened the tech trends angels should be aware of in putting their strategy into action with FinTech solutions, drones and robotics, retail shopping and mass education disruption being in the list of his personal picks. Marek Unt from JLP advised on using a PR-agency to get the right messages to the right audience at the affordable cost. And we still have a long path to reach the best practice term sheets and SHAs as no lawyer will accept the template without adding there another bit. Anne Veerpalu advises to select a simple one that best suits you as an angel investor and stick to what you have agreed on. At the end of the day it is your legacy, track record and reputation.
At the end of a long day 11 startups gave their best shots at the Pitch-up! And at least one of them got promptly 50 thousand EUR (50/50 split between EstBAN/LatBAN) as additional funding to close the ongoing round – congrats!
The brave and bold continued networking in the spa and sauna until the early hours and more than 20 strongest started the roundtable discussion on INC 2.0 model and Business Angels’ Co-investment Funds in the next morning with very valuable first source feedback for EDF and KredEx.
The bravest were taken to the sailing experience with Cumulus boat despite of a true stormy weather of the Summer Capital of Estonia.
EstBAN thanks for their contribution and support:
Petri Lehmuskoski, Jaakko Salminen, Riivo Anton, Andris Berzins, Roland Feldmanis, Ieva Melbarde, Jeanette Andersson, Andrus Treier, Pirko Konsa, Henri Laupmaa, Tiit Paananen, Rain Rannu, Veljo Otsason, Anne Veerpalu, Aleksander Tõnisson, Rene Tõnnisson, Richard Murutar with the Cumulus, all participants and pitching startups! And even more – our sincere thanks to Estonian Development Fund, Latvian Guarantee Agency and Buildit Accelerator that helped us to make it happen!
