Seren R: [00:00:00] I think all of the first Northern American customers did a very thorough due diligence on us.

 We have about 2,000 new companies boarding to the platform every month.

These challenges, of course they can be solved with software.

Oh, well, last I checked it was on 108,000.

For the founder side, it's so difficult. Shooting out all those applications, those emails, and then, they end up in that pitch deck black hole. 

Andrew Kazlow: Welcome to the Diligent Observer, the first podcast exclusively focused on helping angels see what others miss. I'm your host, Andrew, and every week we explore what works, what doesn't, and why through conversations with experienced startup investors and operators.

My guest today for this special episode recorded live at the A CA Summit in Denver is Seren Rumjancevs, CEO of Dealum, a platform that's managing deal flow for over 240 investor groups worldwide with data on more than 108,000 startups. Now having sat on every side of the cap table as both founder, accelerator manager, and [00:01:00] now Angel Network Software, CEO, it's safe to say that, Seren offers unique insights into the early stage ecosystem.

In this episode, we explore newly launched AI features that help angel groups with portfolio tracking dive into a surprising market trend that shows a recent 30% spike in startup fundraising activity, and discuss strategies for new angels to maximize their impact through active Angel Group participation.

I hope you enjoy learning from Seren as much as I did.

One quick note before we jump in. If you're an angel investor or thinking about becoming one, you need to know about the Angel Capital Association. The A CA is an incredible community for connecting with experienced investors, tapping into tons of well-documented best practices and training resources, and just generally keeping up to speed with what's happening in the angel space.

Now I've really enjoyed getting connected over the last few years and that's why I'm so excited to partner with the ACA to bring you this special series of episodes [00:02:00] live from their annual summit in Denver. If you're serious about angel investing, you will definitely want to check them out.

Also, I'm super excited to share today's episode with you because I have been a happy Dealum user for over two years now, and their interface is just, it's modern. It's super easy to navigate. Founders really do appreciate the straightforward experience that they get when interacting with Dealum and as an angel operator, the tool set just makes processing deals way more painless than it was before. So, uh, stay tuned till the end of the episode for a special offer just for the first 100 listeners of the show.

Seren, thank you for being with me today. 

Seren R: Thank you for asking. Really great, great. Happy to be here. 

Andrew Kazlow: Okay, so I have to ask my favorite question, what are you excited about right now? We are here live at the ACA event. This is day two ton of energy, lots of excitement around the world of angel investing, but what are you personally [00:03:00] excited about right now?

Seren R: I truly have been really enjoying the keynote speeches this year. Super, super insight into angel mindset, and very kind of well delivered, let's say. On a background we are at Dealum, currently at the verge of, I think like the biggest release we have ever had, with the new AI features rollout.

That is something that really, really kind of on the back of the head all the time and like looking all the opportunities that there are to develop that feature further is probably, the thing in my mind that development.

Andrew Kazlow: Amazing. Well, I'd love to hear more about that.

I personally am a user of Dealum. It's been an amazing blessing for me and my work. We have several investor communities that rely on the tool to do the day-to-day functioning of their angel community.

And so, excited to learn more about your story and how you got here, but maybe just to start. Give us a quick summary of what is Dealum and then talk more about this new AI feature that you're so excited about. 

Seren R: [00:04:00] So Dealum is a software for angel investors, or maybe even more widely for the early stage capital ecosystem in general.

What we do is just provide a platform that helps to manage this kind of daily affairs of investing uh, for, yeah, currently on the group side or the networks, organizations, angel organizations. And we kind of cover almost the whole life cycle of the deal.

And then, now you can do the pre-screening process, sharing with the investors, collecting the interest and commitments and the due diligence. So almost all the way up to the portfolio where you can also track the after the investment, how the company's doing, the progress. It's really all-in-one, covering all the tools that you would need for a daily operations.

We do kind of take ourselves as more like an ecosystem platform provider. Working with not only the angel investors, but also early stage, everybody else who is working in the early stage capital scene, accelerators, incubators, possibly also with [00:05:00] some grants providers who are using the platform to manage their deal flow.

Of course the founders very important. So we do work a lot with the founders as well, as they end up on the platform and try to help them to do their fundraising process somehow better and easier. Going now into the individual investors scene as well. So that is also related to the new AI features.

Andrew Kazlow: So before you get into the AI features, I want to ask, 'cause I've always been curious, can you tell me roughly how many companies, like how many businesses are you guys working with on a day-to-day basis, on the platform? Like what's the number? 

Seren R: Hmm. So we now have, it's counting every month.

So I think we have about 2,000 new companies boarding to the platform every month. 

Andrew Kazlow: 2,000 companies a month?

Seren R: Yes.

Andrew Kazlow: These are early stage businesses, startups that very few others actually have good data on. And you all force them as they apply to these different investor communities to provide structured data.

Seren R: Yeah.

Andrew Kazlow: Which is incredibly valued. So how many would you say, total that you have on your platform today? 

Seren R: Oh, well, last I [00:06:00] checked it was on 108,000. 

Andrew Kazlow: 108,000 in different companies? 

Seren R: Yep. Yeah. So that's the count of companies, more founders. 

Andrew Kazlow: That's incredible. And how many on the investor side? How many investor

community do you have at the moment?

Seren R: Uh, so we have currently, um around 240 investor groups using the platform. It's all across the world. It's most, like half of them are North American. So this is our biggest market here. Happy to be here. That's why we are always at the ACA, happy to be here. It's really all over the globe on almost every continent outside the Antartic.

Andrew Kazlow: Amazing. I'm sure that that has provided just such fascinating insights. Maybe before we move into this new AI feature.

Seren R: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kazlow: Are there any interesting trends or observations that you've noticed maybe within the last year or so as you guys have done some analysis on this data? I mean, gobs of data.

So I'm just curious, like what are some of the key insights that you've seen emerge from that huge data set? 

Seren R: We actually did [00:07:00] just recently a collaboration piece with the ACA on the data from the platform. And they did analyze, last like 24, 36 months of data about North American fundraising.

We have seen that it's definitely very much reflected that difficult fundraising environment in the last, in 2023, 2024. It's also very much reflected on how like, optimistic probably companies were, how much they were willing to submit their applications.

What was interesting that we saw it started last quarter, 2024, quarter four, was that we saw a really, really high spike of a company's onboarding more. So more companies come to the platform. We saw a much higher rate of applications submitted.

It looks like the companies had some kind of, the like positive incentive or willingness to even try fundraising. So, I wonder if it's, you know, if it's to do with, with the fact that, they were just simply running out of money completely. Or they saw some kind of positive signs in the [00:08:00] ecosystem, which allowed them to have this kind of, you know, opportunity. So that leads continue also through the first quarter. But we definitely saw that the ecosystem in general was activating. 

Andrew Kazlow: Wow. And put that into perspective what kind of percentage are we talking about in terms of a spike?

Seren R: I think it was like 30% spike. 

Andrew Kazlow: 30% increase quarter over quarter in entrepreneurs applying to angel groups across the world. 

Seren R: Yeah. Yeah. 

Andrew Kazlow: Wow. Okay. So let's talk about your AI features. I wanna move into that because as a user of the platform, I mean, you guys have a lot of wonderful features, but one of the key questions I've been asking over the last year is, when do we get AI, when does that integrate?

How does it work? So tell us more about how you guys are implementing AI tool set to improve the operations at different angel communities across the world? 

Seren R: So, started kind of developing the concept and ideas already. I think, over a year ago.

But at the time, the AI wasn't yet there. So we kind of tested it out in [00:09:00] various ways. We saw that the results were not what commercially sensible, let's say. I think it was during the summer, last summer when we started seeing actual attraction of the large language models being able to be accurate enough, making sense enough. And having the ability to actually summarize a reasonable way, the data.

So, that's when we started actually working on, and what we have is basically we have like two sites on the platform, one of them is deal flow, due diligence and screening, which is the main kind of page there. And we have the portfolio side. And we currently, we have seen a lot that on the portfolio side, especially on the angel community, it's really difficult to track the progress of the companies. I say angels are not always, they don't always have the leverage to get those reports in a format that they would like it to be except. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, let me just say yes, we serve multiple investor communities and this is a pain point that every single one of them faces is, okay, there's lots of energy and this company's amazing and we ran it through the diligence process and we [00:10:00] invested $250,000. Six months later, or

a year later or three years later, what's happening? Remember, what about that deal that we talked to a while back? I wonder what they're doing. I haven't seen an update in a while. Nah. Like it, it's just so difficult to track down these updates, especially if angels are deploying a really thoughtful portfolio strategy where they've got,

10, 20, 30, 50 deals in their portfolio that they're needing to track on a regular basis. It's hard. It's a lot of work to go pull those and it's very easy to miss an update. It's very easy to miss what's happening in some of these companies. And so the pain point that you guys are hitting on is

absolutely felt in my world, and I would imagine a lot of our listeners' world. So yeah, Uh, continue. I'm very excited to hear more. 

Seren R: Yeah. So basically usually do get at least an email. That's the courtesy, like do get an email, but it's very often you get many emails, it gets kind of lost in the inbox. [00:11:00] If it doesn't get processed straight away somehow, it doesn't end up somewhere centralized, and also it might be coming to the lean investor might not be like forwarded to the, I dunno, LPs or the syndication partners or whatnot. So it's really big gap of how to get the data from your email inbox to actually presenting it to the investors.

So what we do is that you already have that company, the portfolio with all the data about their background, their application, potentially previous rounds, previous applications in previous rounds. So we have a lot of you know, overall good overview of that side. And now you can just forward that email to the portfolio on your Dealum platform.

And our language models will extract the data. And they, on a high level to summarize the progress of the company, they extract the data and put it into that structured format that we already have on the platform, which the companies don't want to fill in. So AI does it for them.

Then you have the, all those updates in one central space on a timeline with the like precise metrics drawn [00:12:00] out and graphically presented to you. You can actually go there, see the trends, see the AI. Kind of highlight some red flags. Can highlight the main progress issues.

So you can really quickly grasp on how that company's really doing. And you can make a note of, is there any kind big red flags that they need to address. Does it seem like the company needs some kind of assistance or some kind of mentor, mental side or anything?

It's just like, all-in-one place timelines, structured, very easily absorbed and quickly grasped. 

It's currently in testing, and we are piloting with a few of our current customers, and we have to launch in the next like one or two months.

Andrew Kazlow: Okay. So, potentially by the time you're listening to this, this could be live and this will be included in every standard subscription, or will this be limited to one of your higher tiers? Is this an extra feature? How does this fit into the portfolio? Yeah 

Seren R: it'll be part of the premium tier 

subscription for everybody else. It's available as an add-on. 

Andrew Kazlow: So basically there's now feature in Dealum where I could just forward an email and it automatically gets added to that [00:13:00] company's profile in Dealum, and I don't have to do any manual deal work.

Seren R: Yes, correct. Or even easier, you just give that email address to your investee company and they will send it directly there. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, I love that, and I imagine that this will be very useful for a lot of our listeners to know about. I know I'll be using it, so

Seren R: mm-hmm.

Andrew Kazlow: Thank you for making my life a little bit easier.

So I'm very excited about it. Okay. I would love to hear more about your journey as a entrepreneur, as a company. I use the platform almost every day, and this is amazing to get to know you better personally. I don't know that many of our listeners actually have a good understanding of the story of Dealum. We know you guys are based in Estonia and here in Texas, we're like, where's Estonia?

I bet you like I probably couldn't pick it out in a map, and so I would love to just hear more about how did you get into this business? What's the story of the company's growth? How did you get to this seat [00:14:00] and how did the company get to where it is today? 

Seren R: We actually, in April, we celebrated our eighth birthday. So, respectful age already for a startup, I think. But not too old. 

Andrew Kazlow: Yes. 

Seren R: So what happened was, actually our founders. We had two founders, Rein and Rain. Desperately difficult for all the foreigners to track now. So we have Rein and Rain. They were the team of Estonia's very first tech unicorn.

It was called Playtech. It was in casino software business. It was the first one got the two 1B valuation after they listed on the UK stock market. So that's where, how they got their wealth from. What they started doing was angel investing.

'Cause startup ecosystem, uh, like 2013, 2014 started really growing due to lots of, like, it was kind of the time period before that when we had many these kind of technology unicorns coming out, like Skype and whatnot. Those [00:15:00] kind of spinoff really, very active startup environments where startups are popping up.

There's lots of really excited founders available in Estonia, and I think our ecosystem is one of the kind of most active ones in Europe in general. So, there's lots of startups to pick from and they started investing in those. That's how they end up in angel investing ecosystem in general.

So they took some more leadership roles. For example, one of our founders for also in the board of EstBAN, Estonian Business Agents Network. In general can continue to the field and saw that ecosystem wasn't yet using the tools they could be using. So it's very manual.

There's emails, calls. There wasn't really any kind of this systematic approach or tools available. Which means also there's a lack of transparency in general. Like what's going on with the deals and so on. So, coming from software background, they saw that these challenges. Of course they can be solved with software.

And started dealing Dealum. At that point it was called Startup Includer. It was renamed in I think 2021. Basically, how all of it [00:16:00] started was very much around the due diligence and screening process. So the first side of the funnel, the screening, it was kind of the main focus initially.

And we've been adding other bits later on as we progressed. It's been going really well because of them being in the ecosystem. They really built the platform very much to how they saw what was missing, what were the things that helped to bring that efficiency and transparency.

And the goal has always been for them to make it better so the company's not built from this kind of perspective of, it must be another unicorn scale, super quickly get the exit done. It's more on the, we always define ourselves as an impact company rather than like a scaling or unicorn focused one.

So here we are, eight years later with many, many features and the whole process covered. I personally joined the company 2019. So I'm the hired CEO, from my background, if you take the capital table, then I've been on all sides of that capital table.

So I've been a founder. I've been an [00:17:00] accelerator manager. I've been also on the kind of the governmental side. side of, I have had my own startup. founded a, a fashion tech startup, which failed. Good lesson. That's how I ended up in the UK working for the UK's government and innovation consultancy company for digitalization of corporates and, their programs.

And I've been also accelerator manager. I've been working at Science Park with spinoff and the deep tech companies helping them to commercialize and grow their company. It's really kind come to the full circle when my accelerator program was running out and then through the context, I reached out and ask if I would like to take over Dealum.

And because I really kind resonated with that mission or the idea of creating more transparency because it's like for the founder side, it's so difficult. Even you're completely like, out of your like comfort zone, shooting out all those applications, those emails, and then, they end up in that pitch deck black hole.

Yeah. They go 

Andrew Kazlow: into a folder somewhere and they [00:18:00] have to be. Yeah.

Seren R: And you have no idea what's 

going on. It is the kind of the transparency and efficiency that would help not only the angel investors to become more efficient, but also they will help really make it much easier for founders to fundraise.

That was why I resonated with the idea and then decided to join the team. And of course, because, learning from Rein and Rain who had built the unicorn already was also a major part of it. So really, really wanted to learn how to build the company, after my failure.

Andrew Kazlow: Makes sense. Sounds like a great, it's been a great thing. And how did you guys end up bridging into the US market?

Tell me the story of how did you guys get involved in US angel groups? Because you mentioned 50% of your users are here in the US. So say more about how that happened. 

Seren R: Yeah, Europe has always been our whole market. We have learned a lot from them and the product initially was very much built to their needs as well.

At the same time, Europe is tiny bit behind in this kind of maturity, ecosystem maturity side because, the angel investing just started later in Europe. So we saw [00:19:00] that the Northern American market in general simply so much more evolved, and more open to these kind of tools compared to Europe.

It's very natural place for us to go. Actually I think, our very first like Northern American customer was from Canada. Through personal connections of our founders, of course. But, Valhalla has been using the platform since 2018 or something. So, already very experienced group.

We moved over to our US side. And managed to create a contact with Desert Angels, who was our very first customer on the US market. Shout out to Jeffrey Lang, who has helped us enormously to enter the market and who I think really helped us to create that kind of credibility with a very thorough due diligence process, which was no surprise.

I think all of the first Northern American customers did a very thorough due diligence on us. 

Andrew Kazlow: I bet.

Seren R: As the investors did. Yeah, that's how we started moving. What helped us to gain the [00:20:00] momentum faster was of course the Proseeder situation. I think we had been on with first US customers for one and half years, I think. By the time Proseeder decided to close the business. 

Andrew Kazlow: So for those of us that aren't as familiar. Many of our listeners may not know about Proseeder.

Seren R: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kazlow: Can you explain what happened there?

Seren R: So Proseeder was very similar software tool to us.

So, they were helping to manage deal flow, syndication of the angel groups and so on. And it was established. I'm not sure if they were older than us or kind of the same age, but they started it in the US. This is speculation because I, I can't really speak for why they exactly closed down business, but it just kind of financial probably didn't make sense.

'Cause the market is small. It's quite price sensitive. When you start off, when the wrong foot, and with very cheap pricing, then it's difficult to upgrade your customers. They just decided that it doesn't work out for them anymore.

I think they also tried some pivot at some point, but eventually just decided that they will close down the whole business, file for the bankruptcy. So that was our opportunity, [00:21:00] window of opportunity.

Andrew Kazlow: Great for Dealum.

Seren R: Absolutely. We saw a huge growth in our customer basement in the North America that summer.

It was actually challenging to have onboarding so many customers all at once because onboarding with you is kind of consultative. So helping, 12 onboardings at the same time, with a team of two account managers and all the migrations of data, which

there came customers who had really, really, big data sets on Proseeder there and then, you know, taking all that to our platform and so on. So that was a one busy summer, but it worked out very well. Happy to have the customers on board and, I think that really helped us to kind of continue the momentum on the US market.

Andrew Kazlow: You know, it's funny you bring that up. I think that season was really impactful for a lot of the angel communities here in North America. That was around the same time that I was getting much more deeply engaged in the ecosystem. At the same time, we also had [00:22:00] a SPV provider go under.

And so I remember the ethos across the angel community more widely here in the US was just very distrustful of new partners because they had been burned. Your SPV provider goes down, you've now got a huge legal burden to deal with. Your deal management platform goes down and you have all this data that you've worked really hard to track, and this great process is built, and now you have to figure out, what to do with that bag.

And so there was just this huge emotion of distrust towards new partners. And so I think what's incredible about this story and that you guys were able to connect with so many new communities is that, you are based in Estonia and I'm sure that was one of the key questions that you just are sick of answering. It's like, what?

Seren R: Absolutely.

Andrew Kazlow: What the heck are you doing here? But I like, I'm impressed that you were able to work through that, address those concerns, and serve these communities really [00:23:00] well. 

Seren R: It was a very perfect storm that Autumn really was.

And it did make our life of course, more difficult as well. Because being this Eastern European country. We just had to really do a lot of talking. What helped again was having those first customers on board who really had a trust in us, and were ready to vouch for us as well.

So I think that really, really helped. 

Andrew Kazlow: As we look forward, obviously you guys are integrating these AI features. You're tracking thousands of companies, hundreds of angel groups. What's next? What are some of the things that you're excited about in the market or the trends that you guys are watching closely?

Seren R: In general, we see that the individual investor market, there's lots of members in the angel groups, and there are also even more angels outside angel groups.

That is the market that we feel is probably untapped for us in a way. Because, the angels, being members in a group, they kind of each like, interact with our platform and so on. But we're always [00:24:00] looking for more ways to engage those members.

So, that is kind of the, where we see is building the ecosystem further, let's say. So we've been trying to cover like all this kind of capital side, and the founder side. The angels, individual angels are massive groups that we haven't really tackled and so yeah. But we are planning on launching a specific offering for the angel investors as well, because we see that it truly benefits the whole ecosystem to get them on board. Having the ability eventually to really do this deal sharing and syndication and giving more opportunities for angels to join the angel groups on the platform and vice versa. Like creating more connectivity on the platform is one of the things that we really want to work on. The individual investor package will be focused initially again, on the portfolio side.

Those insight mining really is which probably they are often missing, is one centralized space for your portfolio to see what's going on there, and really make it easier for yourself to kinda track all those updates and information provided that's gonna be [00:25:00] our,

hopefully gonna way to scale even further and make even more impact on the ecosystem. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, as you think about some of the lessons you've learned over the last five, six years in your seat leading Dealum, what are some of the key lessons learned or key insights that you would

encourage a new angel, someone that's just getting involved in the ecosystem to consider as they think about how best to engage, how to make smart investment decisions, which is one of the key focuses of our show, help angels see what most miss. 

Seren R: Hmm. 

Andrew Kazlow: What are some of the key lessons learned or key insights that you would like to leave our audience with as we wrap?

Seren R: Hmm. I think the angel group, having an angel group on the shoulder basically, or the support from the group. It's going to make life so much easier, because going through all these lessons on your own. And not having someone to rely on with space, the knowledge or anything.

So I think, being in some kind of angel group as a starting investor or is really, really valuable. I do encourage everyone to look [00:26:00] out for whatever in the neighborhood, any groups that are there that can help you with that. Getting into that community, getting into that mindset of understanding how the experience investors work, all those things, really, really valuable.

Definitely check out all the angel groups that you could join. When you joined, and of course, be actively engaged. Don't be just a, like a bystander. Become part of screening committees or whatever piques your interest most, to learn as you go.

Learn by practicing. I think those kind of being engaged is really important to actually take the value out of being a member. 

Andrew Kazlow: Being in the seat of operating investor communities, I can say without a doubt that the active angels are the ones that really are creating value for the ecosystem.

Average, in my experience, would be 20% to 30% of Angel Group members. You could validate this maybe 'cause you have more of the data, but I would estimate 20% to 30% of the members are doing 80% of the [00:27:00] investing activity. 

Seren R: Mm. 

Andrew Kazlow: Pareto principle. It plays out in angel groups. And so the, I think lesson here that you're hitting on is if you're gonna be in a group, be in it, be an investor, deploy those dollars and contribute, join the committees, like be active, help the group get better, because you have experience that no one else does, and that experience is relevant.

It's valid. And we'll help the community make a better decision at the end of the diligence process. So completely appreciate that perspective. Agree with it a hundred percent. And it'd be amazing if we could get that 20% to 30%, 40%, 50% plus of members doing active investing, in the deals that come through.

So. Seren, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you haven't checked out the Dealum platform, please do. We will leave a link in the show notes. And, if you sign up using this link, we have a special offer for you. We just made this decision [00:28:00] three minutes before the podcast. These guys have some sick Dealum socks. So if you love Dealum, check this out. Sign up for, wherever the link in the show notes leads you, and uh, we'll get you, we'll get you sent a pair of socks. So thanks for being with us and Seren, I look forward to our next conversation.

Seren R: Thank you for having me. Thank you. 

Andrew Kazlow: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Diligent Observer. I'm your host, Andrew, and if you're an angel investor looking for essential angel intel in five minutes every week, I think you'd enjoy my newsletter. I send my best stuff, interesting deals, and more straight to your inbox so you never miss a thing.

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