ESADE BAN finishes 2017 with more than €4 million invested in new companies

ESADE BAN, the ESADE Alumni business angels network, finished 2017 with a total of €4,267,100 invested in 22 projects. The average amount invested per investor (€46,930) and per project (€193,959) increased over the past year, thanks to the participation of family offices. The preferred investment model for ESADE BAN members is co-investment with other members of the network or with venture capital firms. Specifically, ESADE BAN handles investment rounds of between €100,000 and €500,000.

ESADE BAN is a private investors network that puts investors seeking investment opportunities into contact with entrepreneurs who have innovative projects in need of startup funding. Founded in 2009, ESADE BAN is made up of 265 private investors, the majority of which are business angels, family offices or representatives of venture-capital firms. Over the past seven years, the network has invested more than €28 million in 172 companies.

Startups and high-profile projects

The startups that received funding from ESADE BAN investors in 2017 include Signaturit, the maker of an app that allows safe and effective digital signatures. This company received €790,000 in financing in 2017, bringing the total amount invested by ESADE BAN investors to more than €1 million over the course of two rounds. Other startups that received financing were Watchity, a new video-streaming tool based on collaborative recording; Santa Fixie, an online bicycle and accessories shop, which obtained €200,000 in funding through a single investment round; the watchmaker MAM, which received €550,000 from ESADE BAN investors in a single round; the online supermarket Deliberry, which received €400,000; Apartool, a tourist apartment startup founded by Marc Vilar, an alumnus of ESADE’s Bachelor of Business Administration; and Agora Images, the latest darling of ESADE BAN, which received €520,000 from the network last year and is now working on another round, with more than €1 million already pledged.

“In 2017, ESADE BAN saw a growing trend of product-based projects that use new technologies and the Internet as a distribution channel, as in the case of startups like MAM, Uniqbrow and Santa Fixie, all of which are newly created companies that received funding from our business angels network,” commented Fernando Zallo, Director of ESADE BAN.

The rise of family offices

The year 2017 was characterised in particular by the participation of family offices in ESADE BAN’s projects. This type of investor is specifically interested in investment opportunities for family asset managers.

“We have developed a new investment forum format specifically for family offices. The projects pitched there involve innovative companies that have obtained financing from ESADE BAN investors in previous rounds and have come back for more resources to finance their growth,” explained Mr. Zallo. “The amounts sought by these companies, as well as their market value, are too high for business angels, but they are just right for family offices,” he added. “More and more companies are starting to meet these conditions. They come to ESADE BAN as a preliminary step before engaging in private equity rounds.”

“Family offices are characterised by their interest in market-validated projects with a longer track record. In other words, they want projects with greater financing needs and a higher market value,” explained Mr. Zallo. “Therefore, at the investor network level, ESADE BAN has segmented the deal flow of our projects specifically for investments by family offices.” He added: “This type of investor likes companies that require larger investments than what private investors are willing to put up. The network’s family offices therefore made larger investments than our private investors, performing an intermediate function between business angels and venture capital funds, or even co-investing with venture capital funds during the same round of financing.”