Learn more about how PIN helps communities invest in startups.
An investment club is a group of individuals that pool resources to invest in startups. The best way to visualize an investment club is when a whole family gets together once every few weeks and they each vote on and invest in something they find exciting.
Our clubs accommodate groups of all sizes ranging from 30-500+! There’s no one size fit all, but on average, a PIN club tends to have 100-250 investors.
We also recommend starting a club with a team, including 1-3 other people. Although not required, we recommend including at least 1 teammate who angel invests, has experience in VC, understands equity (at least as part of a salary), is the founder of a startup, etc.
Depending on the size of your community, having a diverse leadership team who touches different parts of the organization (different job functions, at the organization during different time periods, etc) is ideal.
Our minimum check size right now is $3k, but we’re working hard to get it lower!
You need to raise at least $500k.
The power of an investment club is in its community. Not only is it a rewarding social/professional community for a lot of people, it’s also strategic. Members source diverse and more startups, resulting in better deal flow than any individual. Further, PIN clubs have a high rate of winning allocation into even the hottest deals because of 1) how easy it is for startups to accept an investment, very much like from a VC/angel, and 2) because there’s a lot of value-add in the community that comes with a check (that’s not replicable by others in the funding ecosystem).
Clubs typically source a majority of their investments through community members, who all bring companies to the club through their own networks and experiences.
Most commonly, clubs will:
- invest in companies founded by their own members (i.e. Coinbase alum investing in Coinbase alum-founded startups), or
- invest in companies directly relevant to the shared expertise of members (i.e. climate scientists investing together in climate tech startups they discover through work, conferences, research, etc.)
Angel Investor Stack:
https://www.notion.so/Angel-Investor-Stack-493ccfbb21d64d8bab526ef563de07f4
Stanford GSB 2020 Case
https://www.notion.so/Stanford-GSB-2020-Fund-Info-Case-Study-e74fc5a0b6a3473f955d1c0e18985093
Steph's Guide to VC Fundraising:
https://stephmui.notion.site/How-to-fundraise-from-VCs-c1589c6a9cbb454eb2ebafcce5104a6f