After launching in Austria, Germany, Ireland and Spain, the European Angels Fund (EAF) is coming to the Netherlands. EAF is a 45 million euro programme that provides equity to business angels and other non-institutional investors that in turn invest in innovative companies.
The fund is established with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the Dutch Venture Initiative.
The EAF works hand in hand with business angels and aims to help them to increase their investment capacity by co-investing into innovative companies in the seed, early or growth stage. “We are currently talking to several investors in the Netherlands, but are open to more”, told Investment Manager Kriss Spulis of EAF to StartupJuncture.
He also stresses that this particular fund is different from other co-funding initiatives of the EIF, because it targets business angels and (small) family offices investing in early stage Dutch companies. “The EIF supports around 20 VC funds in the Netherlands. Among them are Newion, PrimeVentures, Endeit, Gilde, GEM, LSP and others.”
(see a full list here
Long-term relationships
Instead of granting co-investments on a deal-by-deal basis, the EAF enters long-term contractual relationships with business angels. EAF grants a predefined amount of equity (generally between €250k and 5m) for co-investments upfront to each angel.
The actual investment decisions lies with the angel itself, the fund promises. Investments angels make will be matched on a ‘pari passu’ (equal) basis by the EAF.