London-based investment platform Odin has raised $3m (£2.4m) in a seed round including contributions from 220 angels through its own investment platform.
Self-described as a “community-centric” way to back startups, the platform manages key processes, including legal, banking, and KYC/AML on behalf of the user.
In the Odin fundraise there were 220 angels including:
- Sarah Drinkwater, Atomico Angel and former head of Google Campus.
- Jelle Prins, Uber’s first designer and product manager.
- Omid Ashtar, previously president of Citymapper.
- Dorothy Chou, Deepmind’s head of public affairs.
- Matt Penneycard, co-founder of Ada Ventures.
- Kirsten Connell, Octopus Ventures and former Seedcamp general manager.
The group of angels is joined by Lincolnshire-based venture capital firm Haatch, with the family offices O’Shaughnessy Ventures, Material V and IPQ Capital also participating. The company said the bulk of the funding it secured was via its own platform.
“I think we are missing a huge opportunity by leaving the power to decide what companies get built in the hands of so few people,” said Mary Lin, co-founder and CEO of Odin.
“It means you end up building stuff that just isn’t aligned with our needs.”
Future additions to the site include an angel marketplace to find new funds and syndicates.
Despite technology being a “huge opportunity” in the coming 20 years, Lin said:
“But if you’re anything like me, you wonder whether AI will save us, serve us or destroy us. And you probably think that a lot of the companies VC’s invest in – things like 10-minute grocery delivery – are a bit … lame. Is this really the best we can do?”
To date 5,000 have used Odin to invest in more than 300 businesses mostly at the pre-seed and seed level.