VAUBAN was a premier partner for the “Startup to Scaleup – the Role of Business Angels” congress in Paris, 8 and 9 March. This innovative UK based company is looking to redefine venture capital investing throughout Europe – and we got an exclusive insight on what’s going on. We spoke with Gabriel Shin, Partnership Lead at VAUBAN about their ambitions, and how VAUBAN’s offer is a powerful tech stack to the operations of Business Angels Europe’s member networks.
What is VAUBAN?
VAUBAN is an investment platform that helps pool capital together from your investor network via SPV or VC fund to invest in the best early-stage companies while being able to earn carried interest. Invest in the private markets in a matter of clicks – the easiest way to launch an angel syndicate or venture capital fund online.
Removing the traditional barriers of entry
VAUBAN removes the traditional barriers of entry for European business angels looking to professionalize their venture capital investing. There has been an increased demand for European investments in early-stage start-ups leading to top opportunities becoming extremely competitive. As a result, founders typically prefer to have strategic investors and don’t want a collection of smaller cheques from several angels. By pooling capital together with other Business Angels into an SPV, angels can increase their fire power and get access to top deals that they couldn’t’ access unless they had a personal relationship with the founder. Angel networks have played an integral role in early-stage investments and are an extremely powerful resource to pool capital but also for sharing knowledge and experience to support the founders.
VAUBAN brings technology, legal, and financial expertise to bring great user experience to invest in the private markets while being able to earn a performance fee or carried interest like a venture capitalist. (Notably one of the sexiest job in the market). This activity has been predominately deterred due to high legal cost, as well as manual and administrative processes.