Day Zero is a new ‘venture investment platform’ aimed at backing technology startups from their earliest days across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, combining capital from individual investors with access to the OPUS membership network.
The initiative will initially operate as an investor syndicate making pre-seed investments, combining capital from individual investors with access to the OPUS network of founders, operators, and investors, and allowing individual investors to participate in deals on a case-by-case basis.
The focus will primarily be on pre-seed investments, writing the first cheque into startups. While the strategy is technically generalist, the platform says it expects to see strong deal flow in areas including creative industries, FinTech, and ‘Life and Health’ technology.
The project is being jointly developed by OPUS founder Sam Tidswell-Norrish (Partner of Access Holdings and former founding team of private equity platform Motive Partners), together with Jeff Lynn, co-founder and former CEO of Seedrs (acquired by Republic in 2022) and now Executive Chairman of Republic. He will chair Day Zero while continuing in his roles at Republic’s European business and the UK startup advocacy group Startup Coalition. Olamide Ogunrinola, formerly of Octopus Ventures, will act as the day-to-day investment lead, while Gabbi Cahane (Partner of Stride VC) and Imtiaz Patel (former CEO of MultiChoice Group) will sit on the investment committee.
Speaking to the Pathfounders Podcast Tidswell-Norrish said: “We built Opus as a community of founders to share knowledge network experiences and to help each other kind of supercharge our respective journeys.”
But, as he pointed put it, the last few years have been tricky ones for venture capital funds, with less liquidity, meaning less VCs have been built: “As we built our Opus, I realized quite quickly that we had this really unique operating business that was providing unique origination. So top of funnel, our ability to see opportunities is pretty extraordinary. Sometimes we see them before they even exist. We put companies together, and I've had a chance to invest in them personally, but I thought, ‘well, how do we open that up to more people?’”
With the minimum investment to invest in a VC fund being out of reach for most people, a syndicate model would make that accesible for members of OPUS: “So with that unique origination and making it accessible, we also felt like we had an ability to help founders create value as well through that knowledge and connectivity that Opus provides, and that's really why we built it. We felt like we had a right to exist because of the points of differentiation.”
He added that Day Zero portcos will also get a smoother ride with investors if other investors know there has been some sifting going on: “It's hard for me to go and speak to VCs and family offices and investors and say, ’you should come spend time with our founder community.’ They kind of look at you like you’ve got three heads! It’s much easier if I say Day Zero, an investment platform is inviting you to something.”
OPUS describes its network as spanning more than 50,000 founders, investors and operators, supported by media channels, corporate partnerships and over 200 events annually.
Companies emerging from the OPUS network have already raised capital from firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Village Global, and Y Combinator.
However, Day Zero joins an increasingly crowded market for network-driven early-stage investing, where communities of founders and operators are increasingly being turned into capital networks.
In recent times, we have seen the launch of vehicles such as a Project Europe, which is a small fund backed by a network of founders, as well as numerous other types of investment networks, vehicles and syndicates.
That said, Lynn commented: “We are entering a decade defined by AI-driven capital efficiency and by ever-increasing global connectivity. The most important investment decisions will happen earlier than ever.” It would appear human networks are going to be handy after all.
A number of venture partners will also support the platform, including Princess Beatrice, a member of the UK royal family (and an existing adviser to several tech companies), Marc Porat (Founder and CEO of General Magic), and entrepreneur Thabile Ngwato (Founder and CEO of Rapid Innovation Group).