Monte Carlo Capital combines the best of Angel Investing and Venture Capital.
Monte Carlo Capital’s strategy is built around attracting exceptional startups by offering a strong value proposition to companies, both in terms of financial and human capital, and supporting them all the way to exit. We invest via a Fund and as a syndicate via SPVs.
Our Edge
We start investing in the Valley of Death in the financing cycle
😇 Business Angels: EBAN estimates the average business angel invests EUR 25K per company, and a business angel network invests on average EUR 180K per company. Most angel groups are local, lacking the finance, scale and scope to support businesses as they grow.
💵 VCs: At the same time, venture funds with the ability to help scale a business globally will usually not invest less than a few million.
🎯 Our Sweet Spot: Companies looking to raise EUR/USD/GBP 500K-1.5M with a big idea, are too big for regular Angel Investors, and too small for big VCs. Yet, those businesses typically have a proof of concept, and struggle to find financing. This is where we like to come in.
Businesses We Seek
💁 Great Team: First, we seek exceptional founding teams, with a common vision and the ability to execute.
💡 Solving Problems: We invest in a broad range of sectors (Deep Tech, SaaS, Fintech, etc). We seek businesses solving problems, or disrupting an industry, and providing a significant improvement to existing solutions.
📊 Big Market: We seek a significant RoI on our investments. We invest in businesses addressing a big market.
Combining the Best of Angel & VC Investing
💁 Founder Focused: Like angels, we are a group of private investors, with an alignment of interest with both founders and our co-investors.
👨💼 Lead Investor: We can deploy an amount of capital usually only available to early-stage venture funds. We often lead follow-on financings and have invested up to USD 5 Mio in a single business.
🌐 International Presence: We have invested in 3 continents and have access to a worldwide group of advisors.
Deal Sourcing
Deal sourcing is critical to our process.
Thanks to a reputation built from more than 10 years, we receive over 2,000 business plans each year from a broad range of sources. We have some natural inbounds from entrepreneurs who hear about us, as well as other Super Angel Investors or VCs.
Our Ecosystem
👨💼 Advisors: Extensive network of advisors who can assist with deal sourcing, due diligence, mentoring, financing and client introduction.
📈 VCs: We have built a network of seed and pre-seed VCs and Super Angels who share opportunities with (us because they see) us as added-value co-investors.
😇 EBAN: Ian is on the board of the European Business Angels Network (EBAN), the pan-European trade association for business angels and early stage investors representing 100+ early stage investment organizations with 10,000+ angels in Europe.
📢 Conferences: Ian is a regular speaker at venture capital and start up conferences around the world. Ian was most recently a keynote at conferences in New York, Dubai, Hong Kong, Brussels, Geneva and Monaco.
🏆 Awards: Ian won the 2019 “Best European Business Angel” award, EBAN’s most prestigious award. He also won the “best performing new member” when he first joined EBAN.
👷♂️ Ikove: Monte Carlo Capital has a partnership agreement for the financing of businesses built by US based Venture builder Ikove Capital (www.ikovecapital.com). Ikove has built 20+ deep tech businesses so far.
Due Diligence
Due diligence, alongside deal sourcing is the most important driver of return. Various advisors may be called on during the process.
We spend time speaking with the founders and key members, going through the strategy and financial plans, looking at competition, licensing agreements (for university spin-offs), corporate structure, etc.
Working With Our Portfolio Companies
➕ Added Value: As lead, we may appoint someone to the board, advisory board or we may become a board observer. We add value wherever we can, providing mentorship where needed. We have also brought chairman, directors, clients, JV partners etc to our portfolio companies.
🌍 Global Ecosystem: Our network of HNWI and family office investors, advisors and overall ecosystem are based in Europe (including the UK), the US, as well as Asia.
🤝 Follow-on Investments: We often follow-on in our investments over multiple rounds, and can bring in follow-investors.