What are syndicate leads lacking in Europe?

Our friends from fff.vc ran a little research project on the main challenges for syndicate leads in Europe. Check it out!

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Nov 15, 2022

The world of investments is very similar to the Olympics. Some players are on the bench, and passively wait for their turn, whilst others devotedly fight for the win 💪.

In venture, few would argue that lead investors or syndicate leads aren’t doing the heavy lifting. They have to solicit investments from others, constantly search for new opportunities in complex markets, package deals, acquire financing and many other herculean tasks. Still, for many professional and experienced syndicate leads, what makes the journey tumultuous are the unnecessary obstacles they have to tackle (pun intended with gif below).

At fff.vc we’ve decided to start a little research project. After hours of reading Quora, Reddit and listening in on discussions between business angels in our community we are ready to share some thoughts.

Lack of multi-functional and reliable platforms

One of the most important decisions syndicate leads make is which capital raising and investment management platform they use. Why is this so crucial? Because this step will directly affect their ability to successfully raise capital and remain organized throughout the course of the project.

Take the Syndicate Lead Survey

Our research shows that syndicate leads struggle to find the multi-functional and reliable platforms that would automate the essential processes: reaching new audiences, accelerating the fundraising process, facilitating payments and so on.

Finding LPs and Co-investors

Difficulties for syndicate leads also come from many Limited Partners not publicly sharing their investment status, objectives or activities. In a post-covid era, expanding networks through online events and conferences is not enough. There is a lack of special services that can help with sourcing & selecting LPs for a particular investment proposition and reaching them.

Solutions for effective communication

fff.vc’s CEO and founder Akim Arhipov thinks that the biggest headache for syndicate leads is effective communication and engagement:

Everything seems to work. But if there are 50 live syndicates, and you have to update deals, convert other deals, connect people and manage several channels, that’s when things become difficult.
I believe there must be a way to make it all more structured and convenient. There must be a solution for effective communication that doesn’t mess with social networks but, at the same time, keeps functionality richer than Slack or WhatsApp.

Let’s talk about you

And finally let’s talk about you – syndicate leads, emerging GPs and the like who have been reading this article and hopefully also been thinking about your own challenges. We are dedicated to help take the ecosystem to the next level and for that reason, we’re constantly in research mode when it comes to figuring out exactly what the main issues for syndicate leads are and how to resolve them.