The Super Angel Podcast
00:06:48 · Anthony, Pranav Sood
[00:06:48] S0: You know, having now done... And you'll tell us how much and and all of that, like, do you wanna share maybe with the audience a few memorable deals or one that's close [00:06:56] S3: to heart? Yeah. Sure. So I guess I'm now at the place where I've done somewhere between twenty five and thirty deals across a whole bunch of different markets, many in The UK because obviously my network is probably strongest here, but also several in Europe, in The Middle East, and also in in America as well. So really quite a global spread. I don't know if I've got any, you know, particularly memorable ones, but it's actually quite a pleasing bit of symmetry today. So the first company I invested in, the first angel ticket I wrote, actually just today announced their seed round, which has been led by Fly and and Passion and so on have participated in it. So that... They're a brilliant team, Luber and Irina, they're ex Monzo, and they've built an AI platform to help customer support businesses to analyze customer feedback and make the whole, you know, lifecycle much more enjoyable. They literally just announced it. They closed the race a while ago, but they literally just published the release a couple of hours ago. And I just thought that was quite a nice bit of symmetry that the first one I've done is subsequently raised on the day when we're recording this. And, actually, and
00:06:56 · Pranav Sood, Anthony
[00:06:56] S3: to heart? Yeah. Sure. So I guess I'm now at the place where I've done somewhere between twenty five and thirty deals across a whole bunch of different markets, many in The UK because obviously my network is probably strongest here, but also several in Europe, in The Middle East, and also in in America as well. So really quite a global spread. I don't know if I've got any, you know, particularly memorable ones, but it's actually quite a pleasing bit of symmetry today. So the first company I invested in, the first angel ticket I wrote, actually just today announced their seed round, which has been led by Fly and and Passion and so on have participated in it. So that... They're a brilliant team, Luber and Irina, they're ex Monzo, and they've built an AI platform to help customer support businesses to analyze customer feedback and make the whole, you know, lifecycle much more enjoyable. They literally just announced it. They closed the race a while ago, but they literally just published the release a couple of hours ago. And I just thought that was quite a nice bit of symmetry that the first one I've done is subsequently raised on the day when we're recording this. And, actually, and [00:07:58] S0: I wanna just go a bit off script and and ask. You did talk about The UK because you're very close to The UK, but you also talked about much, much further out. So how do you think about managing also international investments, or what's the thread by which you you think about that stuff?
00:07:58 · Anthony, Pranav Sood, S2
[00:07:58] S0: I wanna just go a bit off script and and ask. You did talk about The UK because you're very close to The UK, but you also talked about much, much further out. So how do you think about managing also international investments, or what's the thread by which you you think about that stuff? [00:08:13] S3: I think it always should come back, or at least it does for me come back to what is your long term play and your strategy. So my long term play is I want to get to a portfolio of 50 to 100 investments. My strategy to get there is to spend my first couple of years focusing on building a body of work. That means that I can get access to really high quality opportunities to invest. And so the consequence of that is that my strategy is to try and double down in areas where I believe I can actually add value to the founders who I'm, you know, lucky enough to invest in. And the follow on from that is that I therefore try and index to bits of the market opportunities or else potentially capabilities or experiences that I've got where I can actually give something to the founders. And that therefore means that I can afford to be quite geographically agnostic because I'm not constrained by worrying about SEIS or worrying about whatever, but rather I can follow where I can see opportunities that fit my broader plan. [00:09:12] S2: And how do you think about the deal flow then? Because where does that come from and how do you think about building up that funnel when when you are geo agnostic?
00:09:12 · S2, Pranav Sood
[00:09:12] S2: And how do you think about the deal flow then? Because where does that come from and how do you think about building up that funnel when when you are geo agnostic? [00:09:21] S3: It comes from three areas primarily. One is from VCs. And so I'm very lucky, you know, Anthony, but but also many others to have relationships with people where we share thoughts, share deals, and just talk about what we're seeing in the market. One is coming from other angel investors. So people who have been doing this much longer and much better than than I have. And then the other one is coming from either operators or from founders themselves as they're starting to, you know, have ideas and and want to get into creating something and and building. My view is that I'm quite clear about what my value proposition is as an angel, which is if you do b to b SaaS and ideally b to b SaaS and fintech, and you're doing it, you know, in an international context, I have a bunch of experience and a bunch of lived experience. That means that I can probably offer you something, whether it be my network, whether it be my points of view, whether it be data points, whatever, that will hopefully help you to, you know, to be more successful. And so using that, I then say, well, how can I try and build a relationship with the VCs, with the operators, with the angels, where I put that as part of the value proposition and use it as a way to build, hopefully, mutually beneficial relationships? I just wanted to kind of mention that because I
00:10:35 · Anthony, Pranav Sood
[00:10:35] S0: think it's been mentioned twice before, one with Keith, also with Anandur, which is just an observation from some of those conversations, which is actually the more focused you are within your value proposition, let's say that's a sector focus or a business model focus, the more it feels like it's more manageable to go cross international borders versus vice versa. The more generalist you are, the more it has to do with proximity to the ecosystem for access, which is actually quite interesting. [00:11:01] S3: On that, Ansi, I think this may be a stage thing as well. So when you're earlier in the cycle of building an angel portfolio, I think it helps to have something that you anchor yourself around. As you become more and more experienced, actually, your value becomes partly the network that you have within your own portfolio. And so, you know, just having the ability to connect people to a 100 companies is in itself a valuable thing. Whereas, you know, when you're not at that point and I, you know, know, I'm I'm certainly not, it helps a lot to be able to say to somebody, hey. You know, thank you so much for dealing with the admin of my tiny check. Here is something that I will hopefully give back to your to your cap table.
00:11:01 · Pranav Sood, Anthony
[00:11:01] S3: On that, Ansi, I think this may be a stage thing as well. So when you're earlier in the cycle of building an angel portfolio, I think it helps to have something that you anchor yourself around. As you become more and more experienced, actually, your value becomes partly the network that you have within your own portfolio. And so, you know, just having the ability to connect people to a 100 companies is in itself a valuable thing. Whereas, you know, when you're not at that point and I, you know, know, I'm I'm certainly not, it helps a lot to be able to say to somebody, hey. You know, thank you so much for dealing with the admin of my tiny check. Here is something that I will hopefully give back to your to your cap table. [00:11:39] S0: No. I think that's it. This is self fulfilling prophecy. Right? Like, your intention to where you wanna focus will end up basically getting you to much wider and and broader because the network you create with your portfolio will take you outside in direction. So I guess a step back before we go to segment two, which we'll talk a bit more about strategy and and investment thesis and all of that, which is what do you think? I mean, if you look back. Right? What would you say has Angel Invested given you personally and professionally? [00:12:06] S3: So [00:12:06] S0: I