Stop Selling The TAM And Bring The Team

We talk with Mark, a Dutch angel investor in the Algarve, about how his group backs pre-seed startups in southern Portugal and why sustainability and regional impact drive their decisions. We also unpack what founders get wrong in pitch decks, how AI changes investor evaluation, and why revenue and team quality beat inflated market claims at the earliest stage. 

• how Sotavento Angels invests in the Algarve with €75k to €150k tickets 
• why sustainability and Faro University partnerships shape the thesis 
• what “archangel” ownership looks like inside an investor syndicate 
• portfolio examples across healthtech, food innovation, and algae protein 
• the reality of Portuguese public funding schemes and compliance demands 
• real estate culture and legal perceptions that affect foreign investment 
• building a south Portugal startup ecosystem with accelerators and community 
• linking Portugal to London through university networks and demo nights 
• entrepreneurship as social mobility and a focus on female founders 
• why team, data access, and early revenue matter more than TAM slides 

Connect with Mark https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-p-haaksman-76512

More about the fund https://www.sotaventoinvest.pt

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Transcript

Welcome And Mark’s Investing Focus

Stewart Noakes 0:01

All right. Now, this 2026 Investor Circle series just keeps better and better, getting better and better. Here is Mark. Thank you so much for being here, Mark. After those two amazing reverse pitches that you did at the last Web Summit editions, it's wonderful to have you here in the Investor Circle podcast as well. So for those people that weren't at Web Summit and don't know who you are, could you start by just introducing yourself and what you do?

Mark Haaksman 0:22

Yeah, uh well, first of all, thanks uh Stu for having me. Um I'm one of those blunt Dutch guys that ended up in Portugal. Uh we uh started a business angel fund uh specifically focusing on the Algarve or the south of Portugal, and we typically invest in pre seed startups mainly from Fau University, but also some others from the ecosystem. Uh we do tickets from 75 to 150k. Uh not really having a theme on where we invest in, uh, but we want our investment portfolio to be impactful for the region. So if you have something on climate or something on new food or medical, uh, we're happy to uh to see you if you are invested in uh in Portugal.

Sustainability, Marine Science, Lasting Impact

Stewart Noakes 1:18

And I know from previous conversations, sustainability is a big pillar for you, you know. And you get involved with that directly with the university as well. Can you share a little bit more about that? Why is that a passion area for you?

Mark Haaksman 1:30

Well, uh we uh yeah, we we have this partnership with Faro University. Um they are very famous on marine biology and sustainability. And uh one of our purposes is to leave the world a little bit better when we leave. And therefore, we have to have the ambition to have others or to help others to be really sustainable in what they do.

Stewart Noakes 1:56

All right, thank you for that. So I guess we might as well start with some personal questions. You're a Dutch guy, you're in Portugal. How did that happen? And

From Algarve Holidays To Circular Hub

Stewart Noakes 2:03

how good is your Portuguese if you're trying to navigate doing investments in the country?

Mark Haaksman 2:07

Yeah, well, uh I traditionally started up having holidays in the uh in the south of the Algarve. Uh, really loved the area. Uh, with my family, we we bought a small property that we rented out for uh holiday rentals. Um and then I was and then I saw the the gap in the Portuguese economy that there's no really entering uh international companies in Portugal. So we started a venture called the Circular Hub, where we based on circularity uh uh encourage international companies to invest in in Portugal, and then uh also the investment fund started. So uh and about my Portuguese. I am about to have my 67 lesson in how to speak Portuguese, but it's very challenging because as soon as I hit the marketplace, uh people immediately start talking English to me. And uh and then, well, my Portuguese is uh is not really relevant any longer.

Stewart Noakes 3:12

Okay. Well, I have to say for me with legals in Portugal, since Claude and ChatGPT have been around, it's been a lot easier than before that. When I first started trying to do documents with banks and stuff in 2016, I was really struggling to navigate some of that stuff and the nuance and the fact that things like ChatGPT knows Portuguese law and has like the defaults and things. That's that's been really wonderful to support uh from my side because uh I haven't had the 67 lessons. I've tried really hard, but uh yeah, that's it. I have the same thing. The the English thing comes through a lot, right? And obviously, people hear my accent and they're like straight into English to help me. So um maybe we should ask our friends not to let us speak English, and it would uh exactly exactly.

How The Angel Fund Operates

Stewart Noakes 3:56

So um tell me more about the fund then. Uh it it's an it's a syndicate or it's a fund? How does it work? And um, how many investments have you guys made already?

Mark Haaksman 4:06

Yeah. So we are for now 11 investors, and we brought together 400,000 euros uh to invest. Uh up to up to date we invested in three ventures. Uh and in September we'll be adding number four and five. Uh it all has to do with impact investing in the region.

Portfolio Picks: Health, Food, Algae Protein

Mark Haaksman 4:29

We invested in one company, a health tech company, that has developed a marker for early stage uh breast cancer. Uh, and although healthcare was not in our thesis because it's a very long runway with a very high risk, all the investors said unanimously we're gonna invest in this one. Uh, the second investment we did was in a food company. They create uh granola kind of food and and and uh powder uh uh from Grand Carrot, which is a uh widely spread fruit uh in in Portugal. Uh and we help them to uh to internationalize. So they are in Portugal and Spain already, and due to our smart money investments, we use also our network and experience to uh internationalize this uh this this stranger. And the third one is a company that creates protein from algae, and that's uh uh color and tasteless, and also is widely used in uh food production. So um uh uh and the the the next one we're gonna do has all to do with hospitality and sensor uh sensor data of uh uh uh use of the property. Um so yeah, well, it's quite spread.

Stewart Noakes 5:55

It is, it is. I mean, it's very hard to uh even like to deeply understand all of those different sectors that you're going into. Is it possible because of the the skills of the 11 people, or is it are you looking at it from a different angle than how how it'll work?

Mark Haaksman 6:11

Yeah, well, as an investor, you tend to look two ways. First of all, you look into systematics, so it's an early stage startup that has particular problems just by getting organized and getting its its product out ontowards the marketplace. And the second uh second point of view is always the uh let's say the uh in-depth experience. So, yes, indeed. Uh within our investor group, uh, we cover the uh the in-depth knowledge with the investors, uh, and and all of our investors are either either they're financially driven or supply chain driven or product driven or quality driven or data driven, and then we we look into the venture uh uh uh and determine which of our investors would bring the most added value to the prop to

Archangel Model And Smart Money Support

Mark Haaksman 7:05

the to the company, and he will be our archangel, as we call him. So he monitors the the investment in the company and uh requests for support when needed with the other investors.

Stewart Noakes 7:18

Okay, fantastic. And and on the mechanics, if it's okay to ask you, do you go in as a special purpose vehicle to each company or is the fund that's collecting all this equity and then we'll do a global return later?

Mark Haaksman 7:31

Well, for this particular fund, uh it is just uh uh, let's say, a portfolio in in one company. Uh, the fund we've created is is all what we can call a mother of funds. So we're working on launching a fund for Blue Economy, and that will be a special purpose vehicle. So that will be uh regulated fund, has different metrics uh than we have for the Vic is Angel fund. Um so it's it's also depending on the uh on the on the fund thesis, the size of the fund, uh, and the way we manage it.

Stewart Noakes 8:08

Okay. Have you got involved with any of the CIPID stuff in Portugal or have you stayed away from that

Fund Structures And Blue Economy Plans

Stewart Noakes 8:13

side of things?

Mark Haaksman 8:14

Well, you can't stay away because all the uh the ventures are really looking for uh private and public funding, uh, and then you can't get yourself into uh the the other schemes as well. Um and that's quite challenging to say. Uh Portugal is not really mature in in evaluating these kind of uh funding requests. So uh the three uh portfolio companies we have, they asked for the same type of funding, and they had to deliver different uh uh schemes of information and had to do different schemes of, for example, know your customers, so the entry money laundering uh kind of laws that there are. So uh we we we try to meander through what is really requested at the specific moment rather than we can just comply with a scheme that is fixed and organized.

Stewart Noakes 9:17

Okay.

Portugal Grants, CIPID, And Compliance Friction

Stewart Noakes 9:18

So all these companies you're investing in, they're based in domicile in Portugal, and your fund is domiciled in Portugal as well. Okay, thank you. Fantastic. I I went to uh I went to an event in the north uh a couple of weeks ago, and they had a really uh amazing panel towards the end of the event, which and they were reflecting on the Portuguese ecosystem from an investment perspective. And I took two main points away from the panel, and uh sorry, two main negative points, or positive points, but there were two main negatives. And one was uh a reflection that the real estate economy in in Portugal had been so vibrant and people had thrived so significantly off of it and so persistently off it, that it had taken an edge off of any sort of other investments because uh real estate just did it for them and it was predictable and it was high growth. So that was one area. And the other one was that the legal system was in Portugal was frowned upon by foreign investors, and so if they were going to put money into a Portuguese company, they would look more to redomensile the company rather than to put it into the Portuguese side. So that that was from the panel. It was well, wasn't my perspectives, but it was uh the panels, and they were quite uh senior people from the ecosystem. So I wonder what what do you think about those points that they make? Do you think they're relevant?

Mark Haaksman 10:34

Yeah, they are absolutely relevant. Um, but we turned your first negative point into a positive one because all our investors are internationals, they have real estate, uh, but they also sort of are looping into making impact.

Real Estate Gravity And Legal Perception

Mark Haaksman 10:50

And they know they can't make impact on the on the real estate part. So they for their uh perspective, they put small money like one, two hundred thousand euros, into our funds to do real good things, and uh not expecting a return on investment like they do on real estate, um, but uh so that's a different perspective. Um uh indeed the um uh let's say the legal part of uh of of investing financing, you can also see that differently because if you there's this golden visa program in Portugal that you can acquire citizenship or residentship uh as an international, and that will uh then you are required to invest in the economy of Portugal, and that amount of money we see mainly uh invested in these kinds of ventures. So uh in that respect, internationals come and they start building their network using their golden visa program to also uh grant themselves into society where they are. Okay.

Building A Startup Ecosystem In The South

Stewart Noakes 11:58

I mean, a lot of people would look around Portugal, particularly if they were coming at tech from outside of the country, and they'd say, Okay, I get why why Lisbon and I kind of get a bit about the north, and I know feeds I came from Quimbra, but you're in the south, right? So is that because you just love the South, or is it because there's an ecosystem there that you can thrive in, or how does how does it work?

Mark Haaksman 12:20

Well, I love the South to start. Uh and the second part is that we found a non-existent ecosystem, and uh that challenges me to build one. So uh and then so we started collaborating with the FARA University, which is the leading university in the South, and then we created an ecosystem together with governmental bodies, uh, with private companies and uh internationals. And that ecosystem now starts to, let's say, deliver results by either investing or building accelerators like we do, uh, and also by um co-utilizing property for student uh housing or uh for stud uh uh for university purposes. So we are building that ecosystem which which was non-existent, um, and that's the fun part of it.

Stewart Noakes 13:13

Um it's an opportunity, right? I mean, some people would say it's the reason not to, and you're saying that actually it's the reason to do it in the first place.

Mark Haaksman 13:22

And and and and there's a there's a moment in life that you decide that it's not all about making the money any longer. Maybe we have a bit little bit sufficient, but it's like so we can we can also look for the impact. And uh and the people we are collecting, let's call it collecting as an investor group, but also as an ecosystem. We look and into the intentions and the ambitions of those people.

Pre-Seed Risk, Power Law, Realistic Exits

Stewart Noakes 13:47

Um I once met uh a very successful guy from Portugal. He was involved in um one of the uh the early IT companies in Portugal, he made a good amount of money and he said to me, Look, I've spent the last five years spending money on startups. I I've put money in, but I've never got money out, and I don't anticipate any of it ever turning into anything now. I mean, do you how do you feel about the investments? Can you imagine exits from these? Or is it is the is the true value to you that they've generated impact along the way and the exits almost secondary?

Mark Haaksman 14:18

Well, let's be honest. If you invest in uh pre-seed non-revenue companies, the the the risk of uh having to write off your money is over 70%. So, in that respect, if you go your get yourself into uh this this this business scene, you have to accept that not all not all of your investments uh are leading to an exit. Uh so that makes due diligence for for us as investors quite relevant, uh, but also uh tagging along during the process is very relevant. Um and most of the investors that in they indeed, as soon as they started, let's say, sending the money, bring it into the fund. Uh, they do not expect an exit to happen, and if so, they would be very happy. So we have to build towards 15 portfolio companies to also survive that, let's say, that high risk uh percentage.

Stewart Noakes 15:22

Okay, so you're spreading it across enough that something should land and do you believe in the power law? Is that is that one that you're following, you know, in terms of the percentages of success, or do you just got your own kind of benchmark for this?

Mark Haaksman 15:36

Well, uh, I've been active in the Netherlands in business angel investing, and there we took the percentage that was uh a little bit lower, so that's about 60%, 62%. Okay, but uh and since Portugal is a little bit less developed on this uh in this particular field, we brought up the tret the threshold to over 70%. So um uh we know from experience that this is like what we have to do. Um and as as long as we do we met we leave the world a little bit better than we got it. Let's let's let's say it like that.

Algarve Evolution And Startup Pipeline Targets

Stewart Noakes 16:14

Well, I did mention to you before we started today, you're very welcome to ask me questions in return today. But just before we get to that bit, uh I was wondering how the Algarve Evolution was doing at the moment because I I know we met originally through those guys, and uh are you still participating in their events and things?

Mark Haaksman 16:29

Absolutely, and actually we're jointly creating the ecosystem with your Far University and uh Algarve Evolution. So they grew themselves into a uh well, let's call it the ecosystem of I think 300 uh people uh over the South Portugal, uh, and now we are starting to combine all the the different communities that they cover uh into the ecosystem. And uh so that's that's good. They are very well supported by Portuguese government and they're well grounded in Fire University for the research and uh for uh the startup scene. So um we start to be a um powerful kind of an ecosystem. Having that said, uh, we have to create at least 30 to 40 new startups in the region to deliver the promise that we are making.

Stewart Noakes 17:24

Okay. I know Miguel uh made a uh big statement at the um the last tech conference looking for a hundred, I think it was, over the next few years and trying to drive that through. So I guess you guys are gonna be a big part of that as well.

Mark Haaksman 17:36

Uh his accelerator is uh is is is being a relevant part of the ecosystem. And we are happy to invest in, let's say, what comes from that accelerator. And we have to learn that we all are part of the system rather than being individuals and try to cover our own, let's say, relevant assets. Absolutely.

Stewart Noakes 18:00

No, brilliant. So uh I said I'd take any questions you've got. I'm happy to think on my feet. Is there anything you want to ask me while we're together?

Linking London And Portugal Through Universities

Mark Haaksman 18:07

Well, we we've met in uh in in uh Lisbon two years uh in a row. Uh you are a very powerful, you're represented by very powerful uh ecosystem in London, and I am wondering how to how we can tie those two together. Because uh it would be great if we can go cross-national. Um and London is a very relevant uh has a relevant uh startup scene uh and is a very relevant market party group uh for Europe. So uh how can we make the the world a little bit better together?

Stewart Noakes 18:51

I mean London is uh is phenomenal, and we we've been we've been very lucky to be working with some great partners there over the last three years, so it's helped us to develop a lot faster than we would have done individually. Um so we've worked with two universities, particularly there, one a great deal, which is City St George's University of London, and that's uh basically the University of the City of London, so the financial district, and it was um philanthropically put together by the Lord Mayor of London and the and the City of London uh a couple hundred years ago. So that's been that's been a great blessing to work with them for three years, and that gives us a permanent gateway now back into the UK, so and back into London specifically. So they're gonna continue to run demo nights. Now we've we've done three years of of ecosystem development with them, and they're gonna continue to run our format, and we're gonna continue to um drop in and out of that that space with them. So anything that's within your portfolio, within Portugal, or you yourself, if you want to go reverse pitching, there is every month an opportunity to do that in that ecosystem there. The other university we're working with really closely is uh and increasingly closely is Northeastern, which is actually a Boston-based university. They have a startup hub within uh the City of London as well. And uh Canopy members have uh reciprocal rights to go and land in there, and it can be a landing pad, you can co-work from there nine to five every weekday. And some of our startups have already taken up home there. The big thing that they're doing is the startup hub is a place where a lot of activities are going. There's a 300 million uh pound quantum fund based out of there as well. There's a lot of stuff going on. But what they really want as a university is they want their students to get experience with startups. So the big gateway opportunity there is that if you want to work with any students from Northeastern campus in London, their big uh focus or the big strength, sorry, is finance. So anything to do with financial funds or whatever, there's students there that you can work with from hours to days to months to years. Uh, a lot of the work you can engage with at no cost, or you can pay them. Uh, what they just want is the experience and the exposure. So there's two ways to gateway into London all the time, and we can bridge those as well as the activities that we'll be doing personally in in London. And uh the big we have two signature traditions of our demonite. The London Tech Week is one and Web Summit Week is the other. So that is always a crescendo week for us, and that's in June every year. So if you as a fund or you as a portfolio or you as an ecosystem want to really do something special in London, that would be the week I'd suggest we could we could collaborate the most.

Mark Haaksman 21:24

We also do it differently that we organize a canopy night at a Faro University that we uh invite people over to follow the program that you have developed, uh, or either cross path those uh from those universities. And there's something else we're developing. We are developing what we call an alumni fund. So we're opening up a fund for alumni from university, and that could be opened up for multiple universities or maybe uh some coalition of universities with a we we have. The new approach that from university there's some funding to finance research, additional research and development prior to starting a venture. Then the alumni fund will be the initial investor in creating prototypes and MVP type of um products to uh to to really uh prove uh your your uh the viability of your venture, and then our fund would be the third one to follow up with, let's say, the series the seed investment to uh to really get it granted. And in that respect, we could see if if Canopy and our ecosystem uh could collaborate and see if we can bring that together, because uh we learned that let's say the deal flow in Portugal isn't that magnificent as it is in uh in the UK, and maybe we can co-share there uh uh a bit or co-teach together or co-cultural kind of develop.

Alumni Fund Concept And Deal Flow Gaps

Stewart Noakes 23:07

Okay, no, let's let's have a look at that, and particularly around the sustainability angle, there's a there's a huge uh part of what we do with City St. George's, which has a sustainability side. Um the other thing that you probably have seen how we've kind of uh re-clarified our mission at Canopy, particularly having done the work with City, and and now we're really we try and bring forward this message very clearly up front, and it was always in the background, but we never really knew how to say it properly. Uh, and and and we now frame it as leveraging entrepreneurship as a tool for social mobility. So, what we're looking at is how we engage with founders who come from backgrounds that are atypical, if you like, um, and they're coming from different socioeconomic groups and they're coming from different demographics, and we remove those barriers systematically. In fact, even this podcast is one of the removing those barriers so that it demystifies who investors are, that they are actually people and that they have processes and ways of thinking, and for first time founders from backgrounds that haven't got this exposure before, it's incredibly valuable to learn.

Mark Haaksman 24:10

So I can imagine that these target groups uh can also have some benefits by uh you know co- uh co- uh starting vesting in in Portugal because there's large European funds that we can, let's say, access to uh fast track those uh those kind of that that way of venturing. Um I know that we've been discussing of a fund for female investors for towards female founders. Uh apparently this is coming up uh uh soon. Uh and and that we can also bring together. So

Social Mobility And Backing Female Founders

Mark Haaksman 24:48

there already you do an atypical kind of investment theme towards an atypical uh venture team.

Stewart Noakes 24:57

I think you'd love to talk to Rachel and our team for Canopy Capital because she's obsessive about this stuff and uh we're really determined to make sure our Canopy Capital fund delivers for female founders as the first demographic that we really champion. Uh this less than 2% of funding stat, which Rachel keeps uh bringing to the meetings. You know, we just want to turn that on its head. And uh what I love about the groups that we engage with is that they have a passion for driving their ideas because this is the first time they're doing it and they're breaking all their peer group models and stuff as they're doing it. They're just the ones that we find are so driven. Um it's a joy to work with. The people that are a bit more discretionary and it's a bit more, oh, I'll see how it goes. You know, I don't I don't have as much time or as much joy with that kind of uh uh support. But the ones that really want to do it, that where it's everything, and they're both boots into making it happen, those are the ones I love working with. And uh yeah, it's been great to put the fun together to support them. And I hope we get to to do our first check very soon.

Mark Haaksman 25:56

Cool.

Why Team Beats Huge Market Slides

Mark Haaksman 25:57

On a more generic kind of topic, uh, I learned in the many discussions we have with uh startup ventures that they are all very busy creating what they call their TAM, the accessible market or the global market, et cetera, et cetera. But what we're looking for is a product that suits the market, but more we look for the team that brings the product and the service. So rather than creating all kinds of uh global figures and statistics for startup companies, present yourself as a team filling the need that you are filling or offering the service that you are offering as a team rather than uh offering a trillion million dollar kind of marketplace of which you might address the 0.002% uh in the specific marketplace you're working at. So uh looking at the team for us is mainly more relevant than having thoughts on the global market and a perspective on that one, because uh many of those startups will start locally and expand over time, and they'll most mainly are not really in the uh directly global kind of working companies.

Stewart Noakes 27:22

I think that's a really uh interesting reflection point because you know, if we had somebody like Stefan Moraes on right now and he was talking about indigo capital, he was talking about Kaiser Capital, and he was saying, what's the trajectory I'm looking for? He's very much in that hypergrowth, massive outcomes, going global straight away kind of vibe. I think you are a bit more like like us in the sense of we can see massive impact at much smaller numbers for founders and for the communities that we work in. And there will be some outliers in our community at Canopy who hit some of those high growths that people like Stefan will be looking for.

Mark Haaksman 27:57

But the majority It's also very much depending on the uh on the ticket size you're looking for. And as a startup company, you already are very happy if you can cover development and cost from let's say a half year to a year, and that that can't that cannot include a global market entry. Uh, as soon as you have your your your um company uh based, invested, and started, and looking for series A, then you go to a different type of investor, and then those global numbers and scalability and internationalization, etc. etc. will start working for the for the really initial phase. It's it's it is the team that has to do it, or it's the team that knows where it's lacking resources, so that you can that they can really nominate. Okay, we need somebody too, and the the investment will to be there to cover this part of this uh our need. Uh and that brings a closer to success than aiming for a global market domination.

Stewart Noakes 29:04

Uh yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I reflect that one of the the ways that we measure our social mobility stuff is is in how much kind of value do we create in the company compared to the average salary of people in that in that country already. So, uh as an example for the Portuguese ones, what we're looking at is the average salary by the statistics of the country is still less than a thousand euros a month. And so if we support a team of three or four founders to create their pre-seed and seed valuations, then they're around somewhere in the three to five million valuation mark by the time we finish that couple of years of work with them. And that is more than a lifetime's earnings for an average Portuguese person. So, from a social mobility perspective, we feel we've gone a massive leap forward. For Stefan or an equivalent VC in that tier, that's not even a starting gun moment, right? But but it's an incredible amount of impact that it can have. And we also look at the ripple of that from the founders to their families, to their cousins, to their friends, to the people that they then employ. And uh, and there's an incredible amount of impact that we hope to generate from that. But that's important to us. If we don't measure that, if we don't see that, then we're not actually doing the right job by our own manifesto.

Mark Haaksman 30:16

Exactly, exactly.

Measuring Impact Through Wealth Creation

Mark Haaksman 30:18

Uh, earlier today I had this um this uh this podcast over AI and investing.

Stewart Noakes 30:25

Yeah, with Umigo, right?

Mark Haaksman 30:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And but uh there's also some interesting things there because there will be no startup that won't be using AI in this moment in time. And uh by using it, the valuation will grow uh, well, let's say dramatically. Uh whereas the the tool sets you use right now will be completely outdated within two years' time. So we as an investor, we look and into AI as a as a topic.

AI Investing: Data Access Comes First

Mark Haaksman 30:59

Let's say from a apart from a uh fundraising perspective, uh we look into in let's say a uh database data like language model, AI, and um a service offered and prediction. And those the those three steps, they're quite relevant for us evaluating uh uh a startup, whereas the data set might even be more relevant than the AI offered in the in the in the um uh in the venture. Uh so how to get yourself access to large sets of data to make your AI really working and uh sustainable. Uh I think there's the big the biggest question you can ask. Uh we're currently discussing a uh uh opportunity with a company that censors um uh for that makes sensors for fish farming, so blue economy. So they can detect by warming up the water, they can detect different uh bacteria uh growing or algae growing or the growth of fish uh stagnate uh staggers for whatever reason. Um and they need large sets of data models. So if you are a startup company that really is looking into utilizing AI for a bigger cause, uh find yourself the partner to supply you the data first. Uh, because otherwise uh it will be well, the chicken and egg, as we call it. Uh, then you have AI, but you don't have data. And if you find yourself data, most probably it will be differently designed to really be beneficial for the AI you developed. So uh um this is one of those angles we carefully look at when we value uh startup companies.

Stewart Noakes 32:54

Okay, so it's a it's a powerful combination of the two, but one without the other doesn't achieve what you're looking for. Or is data of the two is data more important than the algorithm?

Mark Haaksman 33:05

Where do you would we would act we would value access to relevant data higher than having uh an algorithm that uh that comes to conclusions? Interesting.

Stewart Noakes 33:17

Okay.

Founder Advice And Where To Find Mark

Stewart Noakes 33:19

Well, thank you very much for being here today and for sort of sharing all these different perspectives. We've sort of gone on a little journey, and I as I promised you, uh you know, the best way to finish these uh these podcasts is to get your personal perspective, your best advice for a first-time founder who's looking to raise investment and obviously raise investment for the first time in this world today. So, what what would you say to somebody if they were sat here right now as a first-time founder?

Mark Haaksman 33:45

Well, as as well, sort of summarizing actually what I said, first of all, look to yourself and uh and potentially your co-founders or your team to present yourself as those, as the team that's gonna fix whatever solution you're proposing. The second part is if you're planning to use AI, make sure that you have absolute relevant data to uh to support your models, because otherwise it won't work. And if you are a pre seed kind of funded startup, um focus yourself on creating revenue rather than creating global presence or um market domination, because that will be different stages of funding, and then there will be different questions asked. We would like to see that you survive the first coming two years, and that's rather than that you that you open up markets like America, China, and Russia. Russia's a roaming example in your in the rest of Europe. So uh so those three are quite relevant for us.

Stewart Noakes 34:52

Okay, thank you for that. Now I I wanted to take a moment at the end to just reflect on how grateful we are for your reverse pitches in the last couple of Web Summit edition demo nights. I love the way you stand up there and take every question that there is. And I know you've been doing some ask me anything kind of sessions in the universities as well. And it's that kind of citizenship which is truly valuable. And I you know, I really thank you for for what you brought to our community and what you bring to so many in the LCAP. Thank you very much.

Mark Haaksman 35:18

Well, um it's it's a pleasure to do it, it's fun, and that's that's what's drives.

Stewart Noakes 35:23

But you're very good at it as well. I mean, you actually give really useful sort of insights and information to people. Like if they tape it or they take away the sort of two or three things that they hear from you and those stuff, it's incredibly valuable when they go back and start working on things.

Mark Haaksman 35:37

Well, if if the the audience is interested in having more information, uh you can see in the background Sotovento Angels as being uh one of our labels. Sotovento Invest is our company. Uh find us on LinkedIn or uh on the internet on the website, and uh I'm happy to uh to guide you if you have if you need guidance or support.

Stewart Noakes 36:00

So uh super kind, and I'll make sure those links go in against your profile on the podcast as well, so people can find them easily. Cool, super cool. Thank you so much, but today Mark.

Mark Haaksman 36:09

Thanks for having me, and uh looking forward to see you at Web Summit next year or this year.

Stewart Noakes 36:14

Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks.

Mark Haaksman 36:16

Okay, bye bye.