Patis sources venture syndicate deals through five primary channels
Alex Patis · I Became A Venture Capitalist With Only $1,000 · Nov 15, 2023 · at 9:55
Alex Patis, an active angel investor and syndicate lead, explains how he builds continuous deal flow to invest in hundreds of startups.
0:00 / 1:49exact quote · 109.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Really there's Five different ways that we typically source deals and access founders. The first is co-syndicating with other syndicate leads like myself, right? A lot of times there will be other syndicates that maybe have a larger allocation than they can fill, and they'll reach out to us to kind of co-syndicate the deal, team up, and put the deal together. A second way is relationships with other venture capital funds. Early on in my day, I spent a lot of Time building this steel flow hustle guy brand for myself. And I shared a bunch of deals with a lot of different VCs today. I've been able to access some deals alongside them when they might be leading the round or they might be setting the terms. Another way that we access deals is through our portfolio founders. So as we've built relationships with the founders that we've invested in and been helpful or been easy to work with and become friendly or whatever it may be, They're now referring a lot of their founder friends to us, which has been a great way to access founders early on and really in a positive light from an existing portfolio founder. Another way that we access deals is through other angel investors who invest very early stage and, you know, they're not going to be competitive with us or a bigger venture capital fund. They always take a small sliver of the round itself. And so when I can build good relationships with these angels and source deals their way, They also will share a lot of the deals that they are participating in or have participated in. And then the last piece is leveraging our investor base. The folks that invest in our deals, a lot of those times they are founders, CEOs, heads of product, engineering, head of sales, or run a small business that might sell into these startups. So those are kind of the five different ways that have built a flywheel, I'd say over the past four or five years. And see a lot of the most competitive deals.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Alex Patis
Patis relies on lead VC funds to underwrite due diligence
“I am not built Like an institutional fund with management fees to work nine to five on this and do the diligence that a traditional institutional fund would do. So piggybacking or leaning on these funds that are set up to lead rounds, set terms, and sign off o…”
VCs ignore small-check angels until they source a funded deal
“Most VCs that I meet aren't going to give a shit about me, right? They, like, my check is small. I'm insignificant to them. But if you're able to share high quality deals or you actually source a deal that they end up doing, you'll see the relationship change …”
Patis deployed $60M across 275 startups as a side hustle
“So I was able to invest in 275 companies Deploy about sixty million in total capital, all as a side hustle while I was kind of operating as an early stage employee at a startup.”
Patis's first syndicate startup grew from a $6M to $500M valuation
“In this particular company, they were raising two million dollars at a six million dollar valuation. We had the opportunity to invest a 150,000 as the final trunch, and that company today has recently raised at a five hundred million dollar valuation.”