No. There is no cost or membership fee to join the Allied investor network.

Once approved as an accredited investor, you will have complete access to the Allied deal room and will be notified of upcoming investment opportunities via email.

We aim to syndicate approximately 4 to 6 high quality deals per year.

Yes. Allied has investors from more than two dozen countries globally. We welcome all international investors to join.

Yes, you may choose to invest as an entity. After confirming the amount you wish to invest on the deal invite page, you’ll be given the option to invest as an individual or entity.

Generally, to qualify as an “accredited investor”, you must meet one of the following requirements:

1) Your net income before taxes exceeded $200,000 in both of the last two years and you expect to maintain at least the same level of income this year; OR your net income before taxes, combined with that of a spouse, exceeded $300,000 in both of the last two years and you expect to maintain at least the same level of income this year;

2) You, alone or together with a spouse, own financial assets worth more than $1 million before taxes but net of related liabilities;

3) You, alone or together with a spouse, have net assets of at least $5,000,000;

4) You currently are, or once were, a registered advisor or dealer other than a limited market dealer.

We encourage everyone to confirm the accreditation rules for their respective jurisdictions.

No. You may review deal flow and choose to invest or pass on a deal-by-deal basis. You choose which deals you want to invest in and how much.

The investment minimum is $1,000 USD per deal. Investments can also be made via USDC stablecoin.

One of the primary misconceptions about angel investing is that you have to invest $25,000–$100,000 per deal. With such high minimums, investors often make only a handful of investments, most of which fail. The investor loses money, and angel investing gets a bad reputation as a waste of capital.

In reality, to increase the odds of breakout success, angel investors must take a portfolio approach, thus building a high-quality and diversified portfolio of at least 30-50 investments with the goal that 1-3 companies will break out and return 50x-100x+ invested capital.

We aim to stack the odds in your favour and encourage investors to make many small initial investments instead of a handful of large ones.

Yes. As part of our 6-Factor Investment Thesis, we only invest in companies where founders have granted us pro-rata rights.

In short, if the company starts to break out, thus attracting future venture capital financing at higher valuations, pro-rata gives us the right to invest in future rounds, thus maintaining our percentage ownership in the company.

Although you may choose not to participate in follow-on rounds, we believe pro-rata is where the real money is made, allowing us to make many small initial investments, then double and triple down on our breakout winners, thus reducing risk and maximizing returns.

Unlike venture capital firms, we do not charge an annual management fee. Instead, we charge a one-time setup fee of $8,000 USD + filing fees per investment, pro-rated across participating investors.

This flat fee covers various expenses related to finalizing the investment, such as legal fees, due diligence, regulatory filings, payment processing, accounting, and ongoing annual tax reporting.

For example, if the syndicate raises $100,000 to invest in a company, and you participate by investing $1,000, a setup fee of $80 will be deducted from your investment amount.

For follow-on investments and pro-rata opportunities, this setup fee is reduced to only $4,000 USD + filing fees.

Prior to launching Allied, we spent months meeting with and assessing back-office providers.

Ultimately, we chose to partner with AngelList – the global leader in SPV and back-office fund administration.

Yes, there are other platforms that offer SPV and fund formation services at a slightly cheaper rate. However, one of the critical questions we had to ask was: What if the platform provider itself goes out of business?

This became reality in November 2022 when the 2nd largest SPV and fund formation platform, Assure, announced they were shutting down.

We can only imagine the legal and administrative nightmare for General and Limited Partners as they receive stacks of legal docs, paperwork, and thousands of dollars in subsequent legal bills to continue managing their portfolios.

For this reason, we firmly believe that we get what we pay for and are beyond happy to partner with AngelList.

The AL platform is truly world-class, and the team continues to innovate with new products and features each quarter.

The company itself is now worth over $4B (with more than $3B AUM) and is backed by some of the most prominent institutional investors in the world.

Similar to venture capital firms and other angel groups, Allied charges an industry-standard 20% carry (i.e., carried interest) on any profitable investments. Click here to learn more about carry.

Please see our complete 6-Factor Investment Thesis available here.

We source deals from our broad network of 1,500+ syndicate members, including founders, accelerators, professional investors, angels, VC funds, lawyers, bankers, corporations and government organizations.

We also encourage cold inbound through our website application form.

In aggregate, we review over 1,200 deals per year and invest in the top 0.5%

Since 2012, we have invested in more than 100 startups, achieving over half-a-dozen exits, including tech unicorns Pinterest and Lyft.

Through this experience, we’ve developed a robust and proprietary 100-point diligence process that exceeds most VC firms.

Our diligence process includes everything from verifying financials, bank statements, corporate filings, and tax returns; to founder background checks, customer interviews and competitive analysis.

We also invest our dollars into every deal and on the same terms, ensuring complete alignment with our limited partners.

We share regular email updates with all investors on a monthly, quarterly or bi-annual basis, depending on the company.

You can monitor your investments, track performance and review company updates directly through your free AngelList investor dashboard.

In line with industry standards, Allied’s GP commitment is 2% of the initial allocation for each SPV. However, this amount can increase on a deal-by-deal basis.

Additionally, since we do not charge investors a management fee, we do not collect a salary for operating Allied, and we only get paid via carried interest if a positive ROI is returned to investors.

Coupled with investing our personal capital into each deal, we feel the incentives of this model are not only aligned but highly differentiated and advantageous for investors to achieve asymmetric returns while maintaining some of the lowest fees in the industry.

No, Allied does not currently lead rounds. However, we may introduce a company to a prospective lead and then participate once the lead has set terms.

We aim to co-invest alongside VCs and other investors to help founders quickly fill their remaining allocations.

For existing portfolio companies, we will proactively invest in a growing company that is achieving its milestones, in an attempt to offer additional runway so the founder(s) can stay focused on building their business.

If the company is not growing or achieving its milestones, we will still offer syndicate members the opportunity to exercise their pro-rata and invest in a bridge round. However, we generally do not participate in bridge rounds, and prefer to follow-on only once a new investor prices the round.

If the company is not an existing portfolio company, we generally will not invest in a bridge round unless a new investor leads and/or prices the round.

First, we aim to add at least 6 new companies to our portfolio each year at a pace of 1–2 per quarter. We feel this pace aligns well with our typical process time of four weeks while also adding the necessary time diversification to help mitigate cohort risk in the portfolio.

Second, with a focus on quality over quantity, we aspire to reach at least 20 portfolio companies across a range of select software industries within the first three years of the syndicate. In our experience, an active roster of 20–30 companies provides the necessary sector diversification while maintaining adequate support for our founders.

Ultimately, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses led by talented teams with durable economic advantages. We invest based on our expectations of long-term outperformance, not on near-term trends or timely market moves.

Third, unlike traditional VC funds, Allied does not have strict ownership mandates with each investment. We are not beholden to optimizing for ownership with the first cheque, and instead, work with founders to build our ownership position over time, targeting 50 to 300 basis points per investment (depending on the company’s stage).

Fourth, our initial investment will always include pro-rata, and we aspire to invest twice or three times over the life of a company (typically at Seed, Series A, and sometimes Series B), growing to an overall ownership position of 5% to 10% (pre-dilution). This strategy helps to mitigate concentration risk in the portfolio by allowing us to lean into our winners.

Moreover, from a MOIC perspective, we specifically focus on venture-scale opportunities with the potential to generate 50x to 100x+ our initial investment within 7 to 10 years. As such, our disciplined model of ~5% ownership and an average entry point of <$12M post-money valuation requires a much lower (and favourable) gross enterprise value for each investment, starting at approximately $570M. Therefore, while we specifically invest in companies that we believe can become multi-billion dollar unicorns, we can begin generating venture-scale returns with individual gross EVs of just $500M.

Lastly, since we are not structured like a traditional VC fund, we have the flexibility to invest larger amounts of capital into follow-on rounds (whereas a traditional fund must reserve a certain percentage for follow-ons).

In our experience as early-stage investors, optimal DPI is achieved when funds target a split of approximately 30/70 (i.e., 30% for initial investments and 70% reserved for follow-on). Therefore, when we apply this methodology to a syndicate model, we strive to make follow-on investments of approximately 1.5x to 3x our initial investment (dependent on the dynamics and size of subsequent rounds).

For each investment, investors become limited partners in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) structured as a U.S. series limited partnership (LP).

Regarding the impacts and implications for Canadian angel investors, AngelList will automatically distribute annual tax forms when taxable income or deductible expenses occur, including an IRA Form K-1 for all limited partners and Canadian investors.

Since the limited partnership is a flow-through entity, any income is taxed at the individual’s personal income tax rate. The individual may be subject to U.S. withholding tax as well as Canadian taxation. However, depending on the individual’s classification for tax purposes, and provided the Canadian investor has submitted the necessary forms pertaining to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), non-US investors may be exempt from U.S. tax and withholding requirements and subsequently taxed at their personal income tax rate, thanks to the flow-through provisions of the Canada-U.S. Income Tax Convention treaty.

Additional helpful resources are available from MCA, RBC and AngelList.

Note: AlliedVP and AngelList are not qualified to provide tax advice and the above should not be read as tax advice. Please be sure to consult your tax advisor, review local tax credits, and relevant international tax treaties before making an investment.

Please click here to view the tax implications for U.S. investors.

When a portfolio company reaches the public markets, shares will be distributed to LPs immediately following any lockup period.

In the event of a merger or acquisition, cash distributions will be returned to the LP’s AngelList investor account as soon as possible, as per the M&A agreement.

In the world of VC, there is no such thing as proprietary deal flow. For instance, last year alone, there were over 50,000 financings in the US and Canada. For someone to see each one, and then select the top deals, is simply impossible.

Instead, gaining access to the best investment opportunities requires a strong and continuously expanding network.

For Allied, our access to high-quality deal flow begins with our robust network of founders, angels, VCs, incubators, and accelerator programs (among others).

Furthermore, in Q2 2021, we launched the Allied Venture Partners Scout Program, enabling accredited and non-accredited individuals to refer deal flow and share carry on subsequent investments.

Lastly, and most notably, we continue to see strong indications of establishing the brand flywheel we set out to build. Specifically, founders within our portfolio are now recommending Allied to their networks of fellow founders.

As a result, we are increasingly attracting the types of highly talented, passionate, and innovative entrepreneurs we aspire to work with, and they are choosing to partner with us as they build world-class companies.

If you know a great founder currently looking for investment, we want to meet them.

Any member of the investment syndicate who refers a company to us (and if we subsequently invest in the company), will receive 20% of our carry on that first investment.

We believe partnerships and collaboration are the vital building blocks of a strong startup ecosystem, so please join the syndicate and don’t hesitate to introduce us if you know a great entrepreneur or founder.

Click here to learn more about the Allied Scout Program.