E303 | Super Angel | Angel investing insights with Mikko Silventola, Bolt's and Hugo's First Investor

0:00Welcome everyone back to another episode of the European VC podcast. Today, we're doing a Super Angel episode, and I am talking to Mikko Silventolev, who is an early stage investor and venture partner of Super Angel, that is superangel.io, and also investing via Magnetic Global Fund, which is Index Ventures Angel Fund. But primarily, what Mikko invests is his own capital, and he calls that patient capital for the underdogs. He has done more than 100 tech startup investments and has a portfolio that has raised more than$4 billion in venture financing. Miko has invested in companies like Bolt, Rappi, OpenSea, Flutterwave, Embark, Yami, Yasir, all startups that have raised significant capital from the likes of Sequoia, A16C, KOTU, Inside Tiger Global, and the list goes on and on.

0:55So today you're in for an episode that is quite interesting because we're not talking with the usual VC lens, but actually with the super angel investor lens. And we're going to talk not only about how he invests and how he finds unicorns, but also how he helps them pick the right VCs to partner with. And finally, some reflections on life design and how you might best live your life as a investor and startup founder. If you enjoyed this episode, do make sure to go to EU.VC and subscribe. And also, if you enjoy MECO in particular, go and secure your ticket for the E-Bank Congress in Tallinn. That is from May 20th to May 22nd.

1:39Definitely go and pick up that ticket as soon as you can and meet the rest of the European Business Angel Network there. Is this a dream? No, it's not a dream. I'm an angel. Why would God send me an angel? Because God knows that everyone needs a little coaching now and then. I'm loving angels. I saw an angel. All angels say. For a long day. He says, me an angel. With a smile on her face. We're here to get back. But don't help me. Been touched by an angel, girl. This show is not investment advice, and the hosts of this episode may be invested in the funds and companies featured. So, Miko, welcome to the European VZ Podcast and specifically the Super Angel Series.

2:27I'm super hyped to have you with us. Thank you. Thank you, man. Let's just start for those that don't know you already. I'd ask you to just tell us a bit about your story, where you come from, and how you ended up being one of the most prolific angels in the region. So, I'm originally from Helsinki, Finland. grown up here, went to army in Finland, started the first company and kind of my entrepreneurial story back in 2004 in Finland, then actually moved to Estonia to study a bit and then founded my second company that was a Finnish company, but we were still students in Estonia, then dropped out of the university in 2007 and then started focusing on that content marketing business that we then had.

3:20Then we expanded that business into five different locations to all the Nordic countries. We tried to expand to Switzerland. That was a failure. Then we expanded to Middle East. That was successful. Then I moved to Singapore in 2014. And then I sold my shares on that year on that company and then started mainly focusing on venture business in a way that I helped companies to raise capital, invested into several tech startups and kind of also was learning about Asian markets while being based in Singapore. And lived there for five years, then moved back to Finland for a while, then tried Switzerland.

4:04Now we're back in Finland. There's been, of course, COVID and some war in between. But now it's focusing on the family and traveling from the Helsinki airport, which works well. And yeah, it's 80 kilometers to Estonia, where I have quite a many portfolio companies. So this is kind of it, of course. A lot has happened in between. I've invested over into over 100 companies, 100 startups that come from everywhere, like, like Baltics, Nordics, but also Latin America, like places like Venezuela, El Salvador. or then also invested into some companies in Philippines, one company in Algeria that actually just became Unicorn called Jassir, which is building a ride-hailing slash super app business in French-speaking Africa, Chile, many locations.

5:11And, yeah, the previous year, if I look at my investments from the previous like 12 months, there's been some Finnish companies, Estonian companies trying to break into Japan markets, Swedish companies. But yeah, so yeah, that's pretty much it. So trying to help early stage pre-seed companies with the fundraising story, helping them a little bit to raise capital from other value-adding angels, some value-adding VCs also. So and yeah, taking it from there, basically. There's a ton of things I want to ask you about. And you just threw something in there that I wanted to touch on really briefly, because your first company was a content marketing business.

5:59I'd love to ask you, AI has radically transformed much or is radically transforming much of content and much of marketing. I'm curious, having had that background, what are you thinking when you're seeing the market today? Do you think about it at all? Is it gone and passed and you don't think about that type of business model anymore? It's pretty much gone and passed. I know that the company where I sold my share is doing still super well, making profit, growing, and so on. But of course, there's lots of different ways to do it. And of course, the AI and all these things will change it. But of course, mostly, I think the old-fashioned news companies and content companies are maybe having some other problems and issues coming from big social media companies and content creators doing the campaigns on TikTok and so on.

6:58So I'm not sure if AI is there still yet that strongly. We'll be for sure about that. But I think the content creators on the different social media platforms are pretty much taking most of that business and putting the old news companies, publishing companies, again into a new situation where they've been basically for the past 10 years at least. I'd love to ask you about what you think just for the audience to hear because much of our audience are VCs, right? And they're used to always thinking about their own superpower, their own edge, and being very strategic about that because they're obviously building a business out of their investing activity.

7:41So I'd love to ask you if you were to describe yourself from that perspective, what's the superpower of MECO? Of course, I'm looking at it from an angel perspective, So kind of building bridges between the founders and the VCs and not kind of competing against different VCs. I'm helping out early stage companies in the super early stage, not perhaps longer than that, maybe in some ways. But I'm looking at that from an angel perspective and kind of how I see it is that I try to, of course, search for the right founders to avoid the wrong VCs and kind of not always thinking about the usual guys in town or the usual VCs that every single capital or country has and that are mostly participating in many of the local deals.

8:44and a little bit thinking outside of the box, like who could be the angels in the markets they're looking at that could add value, and then who might be the VCs, the top-tier VCs that could add value when the company starts to grow and so on. So, of course, VCs have their business model, they have their monthly salaries and so on, but as an angel, I'm kind of a three-star snowboarder in a way that I can help the companies I want. I don't have to. I can invest into the geography I want to and to the teams I want to. Yeah, it's then trying to help the best ones. Honestly, like if I have 100 or if I have 150 portfolio companies, of course, I can't divide social, democratically my time to every single company I have to help the best five the five best ones or the or the ten best ones but but it's also pretty easy because those are the ones that I'm thinking thinking of and if you ask about my portfolio companies I think there's tons that I don't remember and and I should not remember because they're not successful and I've tried of course in the beginning they've gone into stage to perhaps raise seed or see RSA or something like that, but are perhaps facing some other issues.

10:09So I'm trying to help the ones that are successful and perhaps might pay the marketing money back to me at some point. If I ask you then, because most often you hear angels focusing on helping at the early stages, but once a company gets to serious A, it's like then it's passed on to the VCs and they're less active. It sounds like your approach to angel investing is a bit different in the sense that you put a lot of bets at the very early stages as any angel, but at least with your time, you're also doubling down after that. Do you do that investment-wise as well? Do you also follow on in the Series A and B as well?

10:56Yeah, for sure. And of course, it doesn't mean that I don't help the companies after pre-seed or seed or something like that. If they are successful, if they're growing, of course, I'm trying to intro them to the best business possible and best business partners possible if they need, let's say, larger companies in some countries as their clients or whatever. But of course, the value add is getting smaller and smaller as the company grows and so on. But yeah, I don't know. I'm doubling down on the rounds for sure on the successful companies. It's not like I always do that. That's not the case.

11:42If I see that. Do we have any in VC, we'd have a portfolio model that describes that we're then keeping 30 % or 40 % or whatever for the follow on. and this much at Series A and this much and so on. I'd love to ask you, do you have a similar overview, at least if you think back to the 150-ish investments you've done? How much of the capital has been deployed in the first tickets and how much in follow-on? So I don't keep any reserves on thinking that, okay, I'll do this super early stage deal now and then I'll save some money for the follow-on round or something like that. it's kind of, I don't know, case by case when there's an opportunity, when all things are aligned.

12:28I don't see any red flags. Other investors are nice. I mean, interesting that I'm perhaps joining the round. If I see a lot of good signs, then I can put much more than I've put in the early investment. But honestly, it's case by case. Of course, the past two years have been super difficult trying to i've been trying to make lots of new deals to keep my name on the cap tables but but if i think about the follow-on rounds there has been few from the companies that are doing well and there's been some other companies trying to trying to uh raise something but then plan uh well ending up postponing it in in many of the cases so so uh i don't know is this normal time or is the next two years going to be the normal times and this is the new normal times when everything is difficult in the industry everybody wants to stay happy and smile but but of course it's it's been a bit difficult so so uh i don't know if if the next two years things normalize then it's easier to kind of start thinking again that okay i'll invest 50k pre-seed stage and then I'll save the same or double it down on the next run or something like that.

13:49But the past two years have been a bit exotic in a way. Yes, exotic is the right word or the opposite. What have been your main learnings from that period? And how have you decided to navigate it? You said you've definitely made sure that you stayed active in the early stages? I've made quite a many deals like directly through a scout fund or an angel fund that I invested through. I've tried to put my name everywhere, be active, just kind of keep my head up and thinking that the upcoming years will be better. The companies will send more happy newsletters on Monday mornings and not ask for something more and something like that, which I often see.

14:39But that's been my thinking that if I want to stay in the industry, if I want to do these deals, I have to keep doing them. I have to talk about it. I have to talk about startups. I have to do lots of calls. I have to be networking and so on. I can't just drop the ball, which actually many crypto investors do pretty often when the markets are down. But when they go up, they of course talk about it all the time. So I don't want to be like that. I want to be in the business through the good times and through the bad times. Yeah. And that is the name of the game inventor. I'd love to ask you then, because you described yourself as a free-riding snowboarder.

15:22There's a bit more to that, or at least there's a philosophy behind that. So I'd love to ask you if you just explain to everyone listening and what do you mean when you say you're a freelancing snowboarder and why have you picked that version? Why is that the analogy of how you invest that's the best? Well, yeah, maybe it starts from loving snowboarding, which is, of course, not related to this directly, but thinking about snowboarding every day and how to attach more snowboarding into venture capital and so on. But I think in my case, it's more like I don't do any agreements that, okay, I will put out these hours.

15:59I will join the boards or I will do like three hours per month to build your business or something like that. And it's more like helping the companies I want to helping the founders that I see that are brilliant, intelligent people starting up the companies, taking up them to next level and then kind of trying to help now and then. But we don't have any weekly calls or anything like that. It's mostly like if I'm the first investor or in the first round, then mostly it's kind of keeping up an open WhatsApp conversation. If there is something to ask or they want to have a quick call, they can always do it on the go.

16:43We don't need to kind of schedule anything and so on. But also kind of in a way, if I look at the whole portfolio or something like that, I don't want to have any tracker to tell me every Monday that, okay, my portfolio is worth this and this. I mean, of course, on AngelList, I have that one and I see that, okay, it looks quite impressive, but where's the money? In a way that it kind of could give me a feeling that, okay, things are going super well. I have a huge portfolio. I'm super wealthy, but it's all paper money. And that's why it's more kind of, as I previously mentioned, that I'm trying to think of the best five cases I have and think of them every day, every week, and trying to help them if there is any way to help them.

17:30And yeah, kind of forgetting the others. But of course, once they send me an update or something, I remember that, okay, I'm part of this company as well. Could there be anything where I can help or add value? of course sometimes they ask questions and i'm happy to help and always offer a call and so on but but uh we don't have to do it that systematically as as the vcs would have to do and all the time kind of follow up and set up these calls these long meetings because they they want to do it with the portfolio company but they also have to report to the lps what's going on at the portfolio companies and and uh that's kind of my free ride snowboarding and but it is a bit interesting right Because what you do, and as you said, also with the scout fund investing, even though you're not a VC, you have built a very good track record.

18:20And which means that while even if you had LPs whose money you're investing, you would still be a good bet. I would have to report to the LPs. And then there's the question, do I want to talk to the LPs that are maybe outside of the industry? and they ask pretty kind of typical questions that then I'm wasting my time on kind of networking with the new founders and taking the calls with them and trying to get into the tables I want to. So it's kind of why I would not join a VC would be the fact that there would be too many things that I should do that I'm not best at. So yeah, that's at least for now, it's been a good way to deal in my personal angel investing business.

19:11The reason I say it is because I think that there is a magic to being as free as you are when it comes to being a good investor. It also, of course, opens, it removes a lot of safeguards.

19:27It would be nice to have like an open mandate, no further questions in a way and no geographical limitations as an angel investor and I think in my case that would be the best and have been the best way to make profits and invest into interesting companies that come from places like Venezuela or El Salvador like the one we invested and exited successfully. So, yeah. I think it's super interesting because VCs would often think about, well, relationship maintenance, really be very clear about both living up to what founders expect, but also thinking a lot about their reputation in the market. I don't think you hear many VCs that would be as open about it as you are that, well, I have a hundred company portfolio and I kind of look at what are the best five to ten and that's the ones I focus my time on.

20:34And the rest, well, if I get a report, I remember that I invested, but otherwise I probably wouldn't. Yeah, but that's how my brains work and how my head works. So, of course, always when I remember the company or they send me an email, I'm always, I think I'm the fastest reply anyways on those emails and I'm trying to help them away. But I'm not like pushy that I'm spamming them that, hey, how are you doing? And how is the team? And so on. And kind of trying to waste their time on asking my stupid questions or smart questions. And I think that's the superpowers for having that approach. That's really just what I wanted to say.

21:10And I think it's one of the things that for the solo VCs that have managed to build a relationship of LP and a relationship group of LPs that bag them without all the questions asked, that allows them to do a model similar to yours, which I think is for a solo VC something that really can be a game changer. It's almost necessary to be super successful because otherwise the GP's time will be wasted on all the wrong things. And I think that when you have something that's truly unique, like yours for you, to a significant extent, it's your network, right? To a significant extent, it's your understanding of where is the puck moving and then hunting that, as you said.

21:59And that requires a lot of freedom to act, which I think is super important. Miguel, I'd love to ask you, then making that decision to really focus your time on trying to get into a cap table, how do you identify them before others? Because you've been the first investor or one of the first investors in many unicorn companies and the most significant one in Europe, obviously, being Bolt. So I'd love to ask you, how do you do that? What do you see that makes you think, okay, this is the one where I'll make my bet? Maybe it's kind of the topic that I get interested in, and then I don't care about the geographical location.

22:43That helps me, of course, compete against other angels or VCs, kind of open-mindedly think about investing into Iraq, for example, or which I haven't, but I've looked at cases or some location in Latin America or something like that. I think it, of course, maybe starts with the topic or the sector that, okay, this is an interesting sector. Maybe there's a company in the US that have raised the hundreds of millions for that. And then somebody is setting it up in other location, which is kind of an exotic location from some perspective. And of course, then bragging to the founders about my previous success stories and trying to convince them that I'd be the right guy to help them in the beginning to avoid doing something wrong or going to the wrong direction and then perhaps helping them out to get other cool guys to invest into their company and then the best VCs after that.

23:44And, of course, I'm a good sales guy as well, so when I get to that point that I identify that, okay, these are super good founders. for example, went to amazing university somewhere. Now they're back in their home country, setting up something that's already interesting in some other location. It's super early stage. Everything, all the materials that they have or have not is done amazingly well. No typos, no nothing. So kind of, yeah, then trying to get in talks with them and brag as much as I can. and hoping that they will asset my investment into the company and taking it from there. You said something important in there, which was them having basically stellar materials, no typos, no nothing is how you put it.

24:36If we just stay on that point for a second, what does that tell you about a founder and the team? You mean making typos or not making them? Yeah, that type of thing. The eye to detail, the fact that when you go out and race, everything is ready for it. Well, if you go out and you're trying to raise some capital and you haven't even done the PDF like 100 % well, then you can't build a company where you lead like 5 ,000, 10 ,000 people and so on. And of course, we just actually, I was again in Lapland with some other guys who are founders or VCs last weekend. And we, of course, complain about everything all the time.

25:15And then we kind of started discussing that. But why are we complaining about everything? And then it turns into the industry working and kind of trying to find mistakes in everything and red flags in everything. But on the other hand, like, let's say you're, I mean, that's the scariest or the most boring thing I see is that I see a fantastic guy, fantastic presentation. and of course I start reading it but then on page 3 I found some typos or something is wrong there or something is not in place and of course I couldn't write that deck but they should because they're the ones who are building the unicorn or next big growth company from their location so it's a warning sign for me You said that you're also one of your main value adds is both selling the startup to the next round of investors, but you also said finding the right VCs to pass it on to or invite into the company and avoiding the wrong ones.

26:20Could you share us a bit more on this philosophy, but what you kind of, what you see as red flags when it comes to investors? What makes you really think that this is the right match for a startup? Well, I think it's, in my case, it goes so that let's say that there's an Estonia, there's a Finnish company that is setting up their business and they're thinking that, okay, we're going to expand into Germany. And then, of course, it's pretty simple, but my thinking goes from, like, of course, who are the best investors, who are the best VCs that has a presentation in Germany and can add some other value than capital, perhaps.

26:57And, of course, that I haven't heard any shit about. And then it kind of starts from there that, okay, these are the ones that are really active in Berlin or München or wherever in Germany. Let's try to talk to them and then maybe look at some other ones from London, for example. I don't know. Maybe, yeah, sounds a bit of a cliche, but the other way could be that, okay, I have a Finnish company. I raised from Finnish angel investors. Let's raise the seed or the Series A again from a Finnish VC that has an office in Finland, but nothing in Germany or nothing in London if we want to go to UK or something like that well in some cases of course there are good Finnish VCs, there are good Estonian VCs that get on value but I'm kind of trying to of course put the founders to think a little bit outside the box and not only the guys that they've met in the previous networking sessions at the local startup hub or house or whatever so there's no magic it's more like kind of trying to think who could be the best value for them and so on.

28:08I wouldn't perhaps be in the country where they're trying to expand. Behind you, Miko, you have an artwork that says 100 startups, 100 artworks and 100 apartments. I'd love to ask you a bit about your path now. Where are you? What's your plan? Because you started as a founder, now you're an investor, but you're also doing a ton of work to help out your home country. Yeah, well, that's an old artwork that I bought when I was living in Singapore by an LA-based artist called Adam Mars. And the name of the artwork was Short Term Goals for Mikko. So I have 100 startups. The others are going into that direction.

28:52I don't know what is short term anymore. but kind of my long-term play how I see it is that I would like to remain as an angel stay in the industry work with super smart guys super super smart founders from different locations the more exotic the location the better in a way because then I learned something something new about the culture as well and and on the other hand would like to as we spoke earlier, like build some wilderness resource businesses that we have started already few on the planning and zoning and taking it step by step to the next level. So that's kind of other passion, yeah, kind of nature tourism in a way.

29:39But that's kind of, I'm seeing my kind of, I don't know, that's the plan, like invest more and more. Hopefully 2025, 2026 will be better in the market. So I will get some cash back from the existing investments and then I can continue doing that. And maybe at some point I have like a thousand portfolio companies or more and some hotel projects somewhere else related to nature, tourism and wilderness and so on. That's kind of my short term or long term plan. I don't know. So you don't start wanting to build nature and wilderness tours. No, maybe that's – yeah, maybe that's – we go back to the snowboarding topic that used to love snowboarding when I was young, used to love fishing when I was young.

30:34Now I teach fishing to my kids, teach snowboarding to my kids. Love to do that, love to go around in the nature locations and maybe it's kind of, yeah, I'm turning 40 next month. So maybe it's because I'm getting old and starting to addictively like the things I loved when I was young more and more and just want to eat more of that shit, so to say. But, of course, I also see a big opportunity on that in the Nordics, in Lapland, in Sweden, Norway, Finland. Lots of unsubstant potential. and no global hotel operators or anything like that. So hopefully in the coming years, there will be some and we will put Nordics and Baltics on the map in a way.

31:25Being in nature, being with also extreme sports, like you can say that snowboarding is as well. Are there any learnings or reflections around how that fulfills you and how that plays together with spending all your time with entrepreneurs that are building highly scalable businesses, very tough world we're in? Well, they are the rock stars. When I was young, I loved music and snowboarding and I was following lots of snowboarders that were rock stars for me and tried to be one myself, but maybe got too fat too early or something. I wasn't that good. Some of the guys I knew, they were super successful and lived the life.

32:15And kind of maybe I see the same with the founders in tech sector now that they actually are and they can become the next rock stars in a way and live the life and build a company. And the rest is history. So, of course, you want to be surrounded with interesting people from different backgrounds. That's also something that I want to surround myself with kind of like, let's say, snowboarders, startup founders, maybe people that creates sculptures or arts or whatever, or music or something like that. and not just hang out with my university friends from the university that I dropped out or be in a company where everybody reminds me of myself or everybody's the same.

33:06So kind of trying to suck that entrepreneurship and creativity and talent from different locations, from different people, and that's kind of fulfilling my body and brains. I really do understand why you would spend your time like that. You're out here learning more about them angels, are you?