In life, there will always be many new things to try. Like a buffet spread, there are a lot of dishes you might not have tasted before that you might want to experience. Investments are the same. I believe that one can study something forever but until you dip into it, you honestly cannot say that you have tried it.
Over the years, I have refined the process a little based on my past experiences. One should first spend some time researching the topic to make up your mind about getting into it. But with the first investment, one should be prepared to be able to lose all of it. It should be a bite-size amount and one should not bet the whole house on this new asset for the first investment. Also, we must avoid leverage as much as possible, as that will multiply your risk substantially.
After getting into the first time, you can then assess at a later date if the investment is a correct decision or if you should not participate in it again. It is like swimming. You can read so many how-to books about it but eventually, you need to get to the swimming pool to try out what you have learned in the books. Sometimes it is laziness that prevents me from doing the necessary homework. Then I can only blame myself if things did not go the way I want.
In my life journey, I am always game to try new things at least once and gain experience from the episode. Sometimes you get an invaluable lesson and learn about yourself as you do a post-mortem. One starts to know oneself better and why one behaves the way we do.
This leads me to the conference call this week on a new type of investment I went into a few years ago. Back in 2019, I had read up on the topic of Angel Investing. It is a process of providing financial backing for small startups and entrepreneurs, typically in exchange for ownership equity in the company.
There was a husband and wife team who had successfully sold and exited from the first company they had created and were discovering new startups to invest in. They realized that while these young companies find it hard to attract funds, there is also a ready pool of individuals with money to invest but they don’t know how to do it.
So they decided to set up a company https://www.angelcentral.co/ to bring these 2 groups together. On the one hand, incubating and mentoring startups to screen and prepare them for investors. On the other side, to provide a structured process for investors to learn about angel investing. Periodically, they would select a number of startups they like to put money in and invite investors to listen to the sales pitch of the founders.
In this way, they hope to create an ecosystem to support an angel investment community by building a bridge between demand and supply. This structured process is a win-win for all. Traditionally, this type of investment requires a high minimum amount and is only accessible to the very rich. Their process allows for smaller amounts and the participation of more risk-takers.
I joined their program as an investor for an annual fee and was invited to periodic sales pitch sessions. Each founder was given a short time to sell their ideas followed by a Q&A session. There would normally be about 4 founders/presenters in each session.
Eventually, I saw one that I was interested in as I foresee the potential to scale up if they become successful. Whenever a tourist goes for an overseas holiday, they might shop for branded products. The process to claim back the VAT (Value Added Tax) as a foreigner at the airport was very time-consuming and difficult. This firm wants to simplify the whole process and aims to target Japanese and Chinese tourists around the world.
The funding process closed in Dec 2019. In hindsight, the timing could not have been worse. Covid struck a few months later and countries began to lockdown and barricade their borders. Suddenly, overseas travel nose-dived and the company had to re-evaluate the business.
The management decided to conserve their liquidity to hunker down in order to extend and prolong their funding runway until the situation improves again. Expenses had to be cut to the bone while revenue was almost non-existent. The $1.6 mio raised at the end of 2019 was stretched to as long as possible to weather the pandemic.
At the call this week, the CEO informed all investors that the remaining funds may not last much longer. The last 2 years had taken a toll on him and he has indicated that he would like to throw in the towel and call it quits. I don’t blame him. No one knew how long the pandemic would last. Even until today, we are only cautiously optimistic that we have moved on to the endemic stage.
The company have decided not to ask existing investors to top up with more funds. Instead, it will talk to prospective buyers who are interested to take over the whole business. There are a number of interested parties. They are in the process of internal evaluation.
So much for my first virgin angel investment deal. It looks like a full write-off now for me. Things went beyond anyone’s control as external factors overwhelmed the core business proposition. It looked promising at the start during the old normal before the 1 in a 100 years pandemic struck.
Like all my investments, I have to take this as a necessary tuition fee to participate in a new investment class that did not turn out well. The loss is something that I can stomach and I came into it with my eyes wide open, knowing that this asset class carries a high risk. The probability of success is unmeasurable at the start as anything can go wrong.
My takeaway from this episode? I have a better understanding and process of how one can evaluate the success of a start-up business now. It has since also helped me decide to invest in another online start-up after reviewing their proposition. But it is not an area I will seek to explore actively in my future investment journey.
Angel investing is a high-risk game where out of every 10 deals, only a handful or even none can be successful. Having deep pockets is a given as one diversifies into many bets, hoping that the winners can help you recoup your initial investment plus more. It may not be everyone and perhaps sticking to buying exchange-traded stocks or mutual funds is more suitable for me.
ICO –
try first, dip your toes in, no leverage
skip NFTs but SPACs grab sad
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