The Super Angel Podcast
00:03:13 · Pranav Sood
[00:03:13] S3: Yeah. 100%. So my name is Pranav. I currently run Airwallex's EMEA business. Airwallex is a fintech platform for global businesses. So we help businesses of all sizes to collect, convert, hold, and and send money around the world. We're a pretty reasonable sized company, a couple of $100,000,000 of ARR valued about $5,500,000,000, but relatively more recent in the EMEA region. So the business came out of out of Asia. I've been here since April of last year. Prior to this, I was also in fintech, another business called GoCardless. I spent nearly five years there doing a whole bunch of different stuff, strategy, international. And then the last two and a half years, I ran our our SME business around the world. And, actually, it was that GoCardless experience which got me into angel investing because I was very, very, very fortunate to be able to spend time with and learn from two guys who I think are one of... Used to be at least one of a couple of the most active angels in Europe, one being Matt Robinson and the other one being Carlos Gonzalez Callanas, who's now obviously a partner at Index. And so those guys got into Angel probably 2019 or so. I spent decent amount of time with them. I talked to Carlos and Matt a bunch about what they had seen, what they'd done. And I thought, well, I don't have the same amount of liquidity as these guys, but I can at least have a go and and see if I can learn some of the same things that they are. And so that was really how I decided to make my first step in. And subsequently, I think the GoCardless crew has also been quite active as as angel investors. So people like Erez as well, also out there, and Hiroki does a bit here and there as well. But I guess for me, the thing that I I realized was unlike a Carlos or a Matt or a Hiroki, I'm still quite early in my career as an operator. And so for them, I think they can get into almost any deal that they want because they are very well known. They've got now huge portfolios. Ultimately, they... They're the kinds of people who have the value of the network effect. And so for me, I thought that doesn't yet apply to me. I'm still not at that stage in my career. So what else can I do to try and get my foot in the door here and and start building deal flow?
00:05:16 · Pranav Sood, S2
And, yeah, that kind of brings me to where I am today and and maybe the approach that I follow, and and perhaps we'll talk about that as we go [00:05:23] S2: through the conversation. I just wanted to touch on something you said there, which was I didn't have the liquidity like these guys. If you'd be open to just, you know, I'd love to hear how you thought about your portfolio setup and everything when having to consider, wait a second, I don't have huge liquidity at this time. So how do I get started in this?
00:05:44 · Pranav Sood, Anthony
[00:05:44] S3: The way that I thought about it was to say, want to get to a certain number of investments in my portfolio because I think at that number, it starts to make sense from a returns perspective. And using that number and also a view of how much of my total investable assets I was happy to allocate to Angel as an asset class, you can then back solve into what the right ticket size is to start with. For me, I think the number is I want to have, you know, 50 plus, you know, 50 to 100 investments. And obviously, have my own view of how much money I have in general. And that then allows me to then back solve into how much of a ticket should I start to write. And I think, you know, one of the things that I'm really glad to have had the advice to do is not to start by investing big checks, you know, here, there, and everywhere, which I've I've seen some others maybe start with and rather start the opposite end of the spectrum, which is write smaller checks maybe than you ultimately could afford to, but then give yourself the optionality to increase ticket size as you get more proficient, you get better deal flow, and, hopefully, also, you get the opportunity to invest in in more and more attractive deals. [00:06:48] S0: You know, having now done... And you'll tell us how much and and all of that, like, do you wanna share maybe with the audience a few memorable deals or one that's close
00:06:48 · Anthony, Pranav Sood
[00:06:48] S0: You know, having now done... And you'll tell us how much and and all of that, like, do you wanna share maybe with the audience a few memorable deals or one that's close [00:06:56] S3: to heart? Yeah. Sure. So I guess I'm now at the place where I've done somewhere between twenty five and thirty deals across a whole bunch of different markets, many in The UK because obviously my network is probably strongest here, but also several in Europe, in The Middle East, and also in in America as well. So really quite a global spread. I don't know if I've got any, you know, particularly memorable ones, but it's actually quite a pleasing bit of symmetry today. So the first company I invested in, the first angel ticket I wrote, actually just today announced their seed round, which has been led by Fly and and Passion and so on have participated in it. So that... They're a brilliant team, Luber and Irina, they're ex Monzo, and they've built an AI platform to help customer support businesses to analyze customer feedback and make the whole, you know, lifecycle much more enjoyable. They literally just announced it. They closed the race a while ago, but they literally just published the release a couple of hours ago. And I just thought that was quite a nice bit of symmetry that the first one I've done is subsequently raised on the day when we're recording this. And, actually, and
00:06:56 · Pranav Sood, Anthony
[00:06:56] S3: to heart? Yeah. Sure. So I guess I'm now at the place where I've done somewhere between twenty five and thirty deals across a whole bunch of different markets, many in The UK because obviously my network is probably strongest here, but also several in Europe, in The Middle East, and also in in America as well. So really quite a global spread. I don't know if I've got any, you know, particularly memorable ones, but it's actually quite a pleasing bit of symmetry today. So the first company I invested in, the first angel ticket I wrote, actually just today announced their seed round, which has been led by Fly and and Passion and so on have participated in it. So that... They're a brilliant team, Luber and Irina, they're ex Monzo, and they've built an AI platform to help customer support businesses to analyze customer feedback and make the whole, you know, lifecycle much more enjoyable. They literally just announced it. They closed the race a while ago, but they literally just published the release a couple of hours ago. And I just thought that was quite a nice bit of symmetry that the first one I've done is subsequently raised on the day when we're recording this. And, actually, and [00:07:58] S0: I wanna just go a bit off script and and ask. You did talk about The UK because you're very close to The UK, but you also talked about much, much further out. So how do you think about managing also international investments, or what's the thread by which you you think about that stuff?
00:07:58 · Anthony, Pranav Sood, S2
[00:07:58] S0: I wanna just go a bit off script and and ask. You did talk about The UK because you're very close to The UK, but you also talked about much, much further out. So how do you think about managing also international investments, or what's the thread by which you you think about that stuff? [00:08:13] S3: I think it always should come back, or at least it does for me come back to what is your long term play and your strategy. So my long term play is I want to get to a portfolio of 50 to 100 investments. My strategy to get there is to spend my first couple of years focusing on building a body of work. That means that I can get access to really high quality opportunities to invest. And so the consequence of that is that my strategy is to try and double down in areas where I believe I can actually add value to the founders who I'm, you know, lucky enough to invest in. And the follow on from that is that I therefore try and index to bits of the market opportunities or else potentially capabilities or experiences that I've got where I can actually give something to the founders. And that therefore means that I can afford to be quite geographically agnostic because I'm not constrained by worrying about SEIS or worrying about whatever, but rather I can follow where I can see opportunities that fit my broader plan. [00:09:12] S2: And how do you think about the deal flow then? Because where does that come from and how do you think about building up that funnel when when you are geo agnostic?