Odin, a platform that makes it easier for startups and fund managers to raise cash from investors, has picked up a $3m seed round.
220 angels were involved in the deal — almost all of them from Odin’s own community of investors. The startup plans to use the money to roll out a marketplace for people raising money to find investors.
What Odin does
Founded in 2021, Odin creates digital legal and deal structure documents that startups and fund managers send out to the investors they’re raising from.
Investors can back startups with as little as $1,000 via the platform. While that might sound like it could turn into a cap table nightmare, Odin rolls all investors into a single entity — hence how it has also managed to have hundreds of investors in its round.
“In terms of things like corporate governance, you’re not running around trying to get approval for stuff that requires investor consent from 50 to 100 smaller cheque investors,” which makes pooling angels attractive for startups, Odin’s cofounder Patrick Ryan tells Sifted.
The platform launched to the public last month following 18 months in beta testing. While 70% of Odin’s business comes from the UK at the moment anyone around Europe can use the platform to manage their rounds.
Odin currently makes money by charging fees for the legal admin and deal structuring to the people raising money via its platform. Founders pay a fixed fee of $2,500. Angel syndicates and VCs pay a fixed fee of $2,000 plus 1.95% of funds raised, capped at $10k.
The rise of investing platforms
Odin is one of many similar platforms that’s emerged in Europe as angel investing has become more common. There’s Germany’s Bunch (which also raised money from its own angels) and the UK’s Vauban, which was bought by US-based Carta last year. Not every angel investor can write $20k+ cheques — which founders say tends to be the minimum size required from investors at pre-seed and seed — so investing in groups lets individuals pool smaller sums to be able to make that threshold.
“The two main businesses doing this in the US are AngelList and Carta — and we're trying to roll out something similar for Europe,” says Odin’s cofounder Patrick Ryan. “But we think the communication aspect is more important — especially in Europe because the market is so fragmented.”
Odin allows users to email potential investors from the platform to “keep track of who’s invested and who hasn’t, who’s signed legal documents, who’s committed to invest but hasn’t sent the money”.
Levelling the (very uneven) playing field
Odin thinks that by making it easier for angels to invest even with £1,000, they’ll see more diversity.
“A lot of deals [at pre-seed and seed] have a minimum ticket size of like £20k — and that increases at Series A,” says Ryan. “People who are able to write those cheque sizes are more likely to be men.”
Since launching, 32% of angel investors who have invested on Odin have been women. That compares to a UK average of 14%.
The startup has also found that women are three times more likely to invest in women than men, and women-led founding teams that raised via Odin have raised 7% of capital invested in the platform since inception. While it’s not directly comparable, women-only teams in Europe raised only 1% of overall capital in 2022.
What’s next
In the next 12 months, Odin will look to roll out a marketplace for people raising money to find investors.
That will eventually be another source of income for the startup as Odin would charge a share of the profits on an exit of investments through its marketplace. “Imagine it like a decentralised VC firm,” says Ryan.
The startup has already taken stakes in 50 companies by introducing groups of investors to deals, but the process has so far been done by Odin introducing them manually via email. Launching the marketplace would make those groups of investors discoverable on the platform.
The startup also plans to double down on helping people raising funds collaborate with their investors post-investment, for example by allowing them to send out announcements and updates.
Scaling in Europe is also on the cards over the next year, with France and Germany key markets. After Europe, Ryan tells Sifted Odin will likely expand into Asia, in particular Singapore.
