The Pursuit of Scrappiness #40 Mikko Silventola (Early-Stage Investor in 50+ Startups) on being first to invest in Bolt, courage to back founders from faraway markets and basics of angel investing
Mikko Silventola is a Finnish angel investor currently based in Zug, Switzerland who has invested in more than 50 companies globally with gems such as Bolt & Hugo among his most successful investments. He is also a venture partner at Superangel and Frontier Nordic.
On this episode we discuss all things angel investing, including starting up, basic skills, investing principles, best pitching practices, red flags and many more key aspects to being a successful angel investor. We also talk more in detail about Mikko becoming the first investor of Bolt and conquering Latin America with Hugo (3 years from investment to exit).
The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps
[01:50] - INTRO, BECOMING AN ANGEL INVESTOR
- Building on own entrepreneurship experience
- Angel investing as a “full-time job”
[04:25] - ON ANGEL INVESTING BASICS
- How does one start angel investing
- Investing as headhunting
- Starting capital required
- Availability of investment opportunities for small tickets
- Does valuation matter in the earliest stages?
- Getting into global deal flow
[14:30] - STORY ON MIKKO’S INVESTMENT & EXIT INTO HUGO
- Investing in an exotic/remote country in Latin America
- From investment to exit in 3 years
[18:40] - ON INVESTING PRINCIPLES
- Factors in founder evaluation
- Communication with founding teams
- Red flags in founders
- Using your network to evaluate deals
[48:40] - ON BEST PITCHING PRACTICES
- The type of Founders that know how to pitch
- 50/50 appeal ratio
- Some extreme cases
[26:55] - ON INVESTING IN COMPANIES FROM MORE EXOTIC COUNTRIES
- Freedom of angel investing to make riskier bets
- Founders from Latin America
- Doing business trips to nice places
[28:50] - ON WHAT FOUNDERS LOOK FOR IN INVESTORS
- Track record
- Fundraising capability
- Don’t waste their time
- Focus on the winners
[30:45] – ON BECOMING THE FIRST INVESTOR IN BOLT
- Pro-active investing approach
- Helping the founders when all VCs said no
- What Mikko saw in the opportunity
- What the founders of Bolt are building
- Why it's easier to deals with Estonians than anyone else
To reach out to Mikko use:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikkosilventola/
Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
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