Here’s a new kid in the narrow world of investment clubs: it’s called Investee, and it wants to attract individuals to the private equity cause.
Individuals who want to invest directly do in the capital of growing companies rare in Belgium, either because the process is too complicated, or because Access to the right files is too narrow. There certainly are crowdfunding, but this tool is mainly used by start-ups at the very beginning of their project. For the rest, the horizon remains hopelessly empty until the land of business angels “People who try to follow business angels give up because of the complexity of the files or because the investment ticket is too expensive,” observed Filipen Celen.
With Aelbrecht van Damme, a serial entrepreneur with whom he worked at the financing advisory firm he just founded, The Harbour invested to fill this gap means: to help these people to become new breed of business angels.
Growing Businesses
Participating party is a investment club. This means that members of this community are offered investments in companies and are always free to participate or not. “We aim growing companies or companies with growth potentialwithout concentrating on technology or software as usual, but open to all industries,” explains Filip Celen. “People need to understand a company before they invest in it.”
“The typical business angel is 60 years old, a lot of experience, money and time,” the founder continues. “We want to bring out a different kind of business angel: entrepreneurs or managers aged 30 to 50 who are still active and absolutely have little time, but have some money and want to invest in private capital.” That is the goal of Investee on the fundraising page.
“We want to create a different type of business angel: entrepreneurs or managers aged 30 to 50 who are still active and are bound to be short on time but have a little money and want to invest in private capital.”
The hunting ground of the new club is Belgium and its three regions. The stake will be around 200 to 300,000 euros per investment. The minimum ticket per member is 20,000 euros. Investments benefit from the “SME tax break” and non-taxation of capital gains.
A community of 150 members
investee intended Convert around 150 members this yearenough to bring together 2 to 3 million euros to invest in a dozen files. “But we’re ambitious, we’re aiming for 5 million in 2023, then 10 million in the following year,” explains Celen.
The file flow are supplied from various sources including The Harbor where deemed appropriate. involved already has some investment projects under the elbow. The sectors covered range from pharmaceuticals and retail to 3D printing, electromobility and the cloud. Aelbrecht Van Damme and Filip Celen run the club together and draw on external expertise to analyze files. “Our mission is to offer files with seal of approval.”
The club wants to stay between 4 and 7 years in each participating company. A pretty standard length of time in private equity, but Investee is innovating in this area too, planning to ask every entrepreneur to do so work together from the fifth grade in preparation for future release.
“We target companies that can make a difference.”
About the ukrainian-russian crisis, she… urged the two founders to delay the launch of the club for a few days. “This crisis will not be resolved quickly,” concludes Filip Celen. It will no doubt impact our go-to-market but not our files or our investors as we target companies that are likely to make a difference.”
The abstract
- Private individuals wishing to invest directly in the capital of growing companies rarely do so in Belgium.
- Aelbrecht Van Damme, a serial entrepreneur, and fellow student Filip Celen have just launched the investment club Investee; Aim to help these individuals become a new breed of business angels.
- Investee aims to convert around 150 members this year, enough to raise 2 to 3 million euros to start investing in a dozen files across the country’s three regions.
- He intends to raise 5 million in 2023, then 10 million the following year.