A Single Portuguese Angel Investment was Announced in April

There were 38 angel investment deals worth an aggregate EUR 180 million targeting Western European companies announced in March 2019, according to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk, compared with 60 such deals totalling EUR 366 million in February. Despite the decline month-on-month, value on a 12-month comparison improved 14 percent from EUR 142 million in March 2018; however, volume remained the lowest-recorded result since August 2018 (35 deals).
There are still seven days until the end of April, at the time of writing, but so far there have been 15 deals worth an aggregate EUR 27 million signed off this month. Value is trailing significantly behind the previous months of 2019 to date; however, a few single deals with higher values could be all that is needed to boost value for April. The largest deal announced in April so far was worth EUR 9 million and involved OpenGamma, a UK-based cloud derivatives risk analytics management software developer, raising funding from Accel Management Company, Dawn Capital, CME Ventures and Cristobal Conde. In total, 12 of the 15 deals signed off in the month so far had a disclosed value. Of these, seven featured companies based in the UK, including each of the top four, while Spain and Italy both featured twice. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden were each targeted in one deal in April.
One deal that stood out in the month under review was the fifth-largest to be announced in the year to date, or the highest-placed Western European target country by angel investors after the UK. This deal involved Portugal-based online pet food subscription platform operator Barkyn securing seed funding worth EUR 2 million from business angel fund Shilling Capital Partners, as well as venture capitalists All Iron Ventures, Indico Capital Partners – Sociedade De Capital De Risco and website development group Capital De Risco. This deal particularly stood out as there have only been a total 18 angel investment deals targeting companies based in Portugal announced since the start of 2006, with Barkyn accounting for the third-largest overall. Unbabel Unipessoal, an online translation platform operator, featured in the largest angel investment in a Portuguese target since 2006 as FoundersClub, as well as other venture capitalists Caixa Capital – Sociedade de Capital de Risco and Salesforce Ventures, to name a few, invested EUR 19 million in Unbabel’s series B round of funding.
The volume of angel investment globally declined month-on-month, while value also declined but remained particularly static when compared to February as 133 deals worth EUR 1,067 million were signed off in March compared to 149 deals worth EUR 1,279 million. In fact, value was the fourth-largest for the entire 12 months under review and was slightly higher than the EUR 1,049 million signed off in March 2018.
In conclusion, despite the value of angel investment in Western Europe being down month-on-month in March, the first quarter of 2019 is the highest-recorded first quarter on record as EUR 765 million was invested across 152 deals. If the opening three months is any indication of how the remaining three quarters will turn out, then 2019 could prove to be a record-breaking year for angel activity in Western Europe.
© Zephyr

On April 3^rd, EBAN, in collaboration with Seedstars and ABAN, organised a Business Angel Workshop on investing in emerging markets together with the Seedstars Investors Forum and the Seedstars Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The workshop featured 3 expert speakers with direct experience investing in Africa, Latin America, and Asia sharing their lessons learned with an audience of already active business angels interested in exploring emerging market opportunities. The speakers also presented case studies from their own investments:
Khaled Ismail, Managing Partner at HIMangel and Board Member of ABAN with a portfolio of startups based throughout the entire African continent, spoke about the geopolitical and macroeconomic environment in Africa, his decision-making process and criteria, how he deals with entrepreneurs and more. Kim Neel Wyon, Senior Partner at Optiteam, presented his experience investing in India, giving examples of social businesses based there and discussed how angels can understand their own risk profile. Last but not least, Martin Johnson, Board Member of Sophia Business Angels, spoke about his experience investing in Carcool, a car-sharing platform based in Peru and the challenges and opportunities for a European investor investing in a Latin American company.
The workshop in Lausanne was the first in a series of collaborations between EBAN and Seedstars, with more editions planned across Africa, Latin America and Asia in the coming months. The goal of the collaboration is to provide local investors with all of the knowledge needed to make early stage investments professionally, equipping them with template documents and other necessary tools in order to bridge the gap between the early stage markets in Europe and other continents mentioned above. By organising business angel workshops led by experienced coaches in different emerging markets, EBAN and Seedstars hope to promote angel investing and develop local angel ecosystems across the world, as well as help enable European investors to co-invest with local business angels.
EBAN would like to thank Seedstars and ABAN as well as all workshop guest speakers and attendees for working to create a great session.