Enschede-based Golden Egg Check (GEC), a Dutch analyst startup that tracks startups, scale-ups, and VC deals, announced on Thursday that it has raised €5M from investors.
With this fund, GEC Capital I, Golden Egg Check aims to make about 35 investments in tech companies over three years.
Launched in 2022, the fund now has a portfolio of 22 startups, mostly Dutch software companies.
It includes Runnr.ai (AI chatbot for hotels), Sirius (sustainability co-pilot for metals and mining companies), Haaven (platform for design and construction of wooden homes), and QDI Systems (quantum dot technology for medical imaging).
Fund utilisation
With the new capital injection from several (former) tech entrepreneurs, the oversubscribed fund has reached the final close on the hard cap of €5M.
Thomas Mensink, partner at GEC Capital, explains how this works: “We have now co-invested with, for example, Speedinvest (Austria), Norrsken (Sweden), and Curiosity VC (Netherlands). We hitch a ride on their knowledge and expertise. At the same time, we bring in our network of investors so that our portfolio companies get faster and better access to (follow-on) capital. In this way, we can do many deals with a small team and ensure an optimal spread for our investors.”
The announcement comes four months after raising €2.5M from Koejans Capital, 819 Capital Partners, Arjé Cahn (ex-Hippo), Geert-Jan Smits (ex-Flinders, author “The start-up scorecard”) and Investeringsfonds Groningen.
Gilles Meijer, founder of Golden Egg Check and partner at GEC Capital, explains, “We generally invest at an early stage, in Pre-Seed and Seed, but in terms of sector we are broadly interested because we always co-invest with a specialist. With our 5 million euros, we can make 30 to 35 investments and still keep enough behind to continue investing in the most successful companies.”
The investment period of Golden Egg Check’s first fund runs until the summer of 2025.
Meijer adds, “We will make sure that our second fund is ready immediately after that. We will flesh out that plan in the coming period. The next fund will be slightly larger but because we see that our co-investment strategy is working, we will continue to focus on that.”
Brief about Golden Egg Check
Golden Egg Check is a startup analyst company leveraging data, insights, and a robust network within the Dutch tech and VC ecosystem. The company’s mission is to propel the Netherlands to the forefront of European startup ecosystems.
GEC assesses the potential, feasibility, and investor readiness of companies, employing the perspective of venture capital investors.
Drawing on years of studying VC investment preferences and decision-making, GEC applies “best practices” to assist startups, scale-ups, internal ventures, and new business cases in becoming success stories.
Ytsen van der Meer, the venture partner at GEC Capital, adds: “In addition, we are building a founder community because we see that entrepreneurs learn an awful lot from each other. That peer-to-peer interaction is valuable and comes into its own in an active fund in which many deals take place.”
“These investors have backgrounds in fintech, cyber security, e-commerce, AI, online marketplaces, and HR tech, among others. We use their expertise in assessing the quality of the startup and they are willing to help our portfolio companies move forward. We consider them part of our community,” adds van der Meer.