Intro to Play Money
What makes us so different.
Our What & Why
Play Money lets everyday angels build the diverse startup portfolio of their dreams without making investing a full-time job and at just about any budget.
It enables founders to access the perfect everyday angels – folks with the operational expertise and networks they need to grow their businesses – with a single pitch.
It amplifies and accelerates the most inspiring emerging fund managers and influencers who share their fresh POV on what the future can look like.
Play Money was born out of our experience as angel investors and entrepreneurs — and out of our ambition to put $1B of money in motion for a new generation of founders and funders.
A little about us…
Play Money is not our first rodeo. We’ve been startup founders for over a decade. We have two acquisitions, an IPO, $2B+ in new product launches, and nearly 100 startup investments under our belts. We are backed by M13 Ventures and dozens of angels — many of whom hopped on board after falling in love with our product.
Why Angel? First Check Calls Game!
Angel investors decide what problems get solved and who gets to solve them. And they get to moneyball out on the spoils from the future they help create. The more kinds of people writing those first checks, the better the future will be.
Funding the future shouldn’t feel like a mutual fund.
Sure, you can invest in a VC fund. But identifying and diligencing funds is work - and the buy-in price is well beyond most of our budgets. Plus the finance folks shouldn’t have all the fun. There is more to investing than just financial returns.
Money is supposed to bring joy.
The excitement of learning new industries.
The rush of collective action, funding the future.
The thrill of riding alongside a fearless founder.
And maybe bragging rights for life if your next pre-seed investment becomes the next blockbuster IPO. 🤑
Isn’t startup investing risky?
Yes. It’s true, most startups fail. And the ones that win take a decade to deliver returns. But the ones that win, win big enough to offset the losses and deliver asymmetric returns. The problem is that most angels don’t take enough shots on goal to capture these winners.
Just like index funds are usually the best way to invest in the stock market, building a diversified portfolio of startups transforms the lottery-ticket-type risk of a single investment into a more predictable high-performing asset class.
If done right, Angel investments can make up 5%-10% of a responsible investment portfolio.
The Problem Is…
Building a robust angel portfolio requires a full-time job, an insider’s level of access to deal flow and serious cash. Until now.
Play Money changes all of this.
Play Money lets you build the diverse startup portfolio of your dreams without making investing a full-time job and at just about any budget.
How Play Money Works
Each week, we’ll share 1-2 early-stage startup deals curated for what you are most likely to love. Check out 👆🏼 walkthrough of what startup investing looks like on Play Money.
We curate exclusive deals, interview the founders to get to the core of what makes them tick and combine it with juicy nuggets of market insight from the investors who have backed them. And then we serve it up in a format that feels more like Tinder than a date with Charles Schwab.
Each deal will be live on the site for about three weeks, giving you plenty of time to dig into the ones that capture your interest. We’ll notify you before each deal expires so you don’t miss out. When you’re ready to invest, it’s a two-click process. “Wow, that was easy. It was almost too easy,” is a quote we’ve heard more than once.
Lurk and learn as long as you want or pull the trigger and fund the future on Day 1. You make the rules. New Deals Drop on Thursdays.
Play Money Pro Tips:
During the first week deals are open you can submit questions to the founders. We’ll post the replies (and email you directly) when founders answer.
After you invest, you’ll have a chance to share your why. Do this! 30% of investors check out what other investors say. This is your chance to help nudge more angels to invest in a company you believe in.
Trusted Industry Partners
We are not going this alone. Plaid does all the money moving (yay to no wire fees!), Citizens Bank holds our accounts and we’ve built an entirely automated platform to manage the SPVs — including regulatory filings, tax reporting and distribution management.
Where do deals come from?
Play Money sources deal flow from the most exciting early-stage fund managers, high-velocity angels/groups, and high-access influencers.
These folks see hundreds (if not thousands) of deals for every investment they make. They also do the kind of in-the-weeds logistical diligence on legal docs, cap tables, and founders that the typical angel doesn’t have access or expertise to do themselves. You get the benefit of professional insight and access without all the work.
You’ll also see deals shared by your own private communities and can follow the investments from your favorite everyday influencers. Our job is to serve you up the 1-2 deals a week you are most likely to love.
From Alpha to Zeitgeist
You won’t always recognize the names of the funds sharing deals on Play Money. That’s because it’s not always the big-name investors who deliver the best results. In fact, it’s historically been the smaller (sub $50M) and newer (Funds I-IV) funds that take home the performance prize.
The alpha in early-stage investing is with emerging funds. They back founders who are gritty and resourceful, solving problems in blue ocean spaces. Their investment dollars are right-sized to the company’s needs. And because the checks these investors write are smaller, the best companies in their portfolios still need to add additional capital, connections, and clout to their cap tables. This is the perfect combination for Angel!
And if we do our job right, you might find the perfect fund to LP into as well.
Value beyond the capital: Put me in Coach!
Lots of people who angel invest talk about “I want access to the founder”.
Do you really? What you want is for the founder to be focused on their most important things and to be able to efficiently execute on those things. If you have the missing expertise or connection they need to do that, you want to be called into action! And if not, you want to be along for the ride.
It’s sometimes helpful to think of early-stage investing as buying a paid newsletter subscription. But you deserve to get the newsletter.
The Rub with SPVs
The rub with SPV investing is that you usually don’t get the newsletter. SPV organizers typically don’t share any investor information with the founder, and as a result SPV investors never hear from the company again after their investment is finalized.
This sucks. One of the biggest thrills of angel investing is being able to ride alongside the ups and downs of the founder’s journey.
It’s also wasteful. It takes a potentially valuable resource away from the founder. The most valuable people on the cap table aren’t always the folks writing 6-figure checks. The expertise, connections, and clout of the angels hidden away in the SPV could be game-changers for a young company.
This is where Play Money is different.
First, after the SPV closes, we provide your contact info directly to the founder so they can include you in stakeholder updates.
Then, for founders who provide those updates, we’ve built a tool to help them access the expertise and connections of the investors in their Play Money SPV.
Real Talk
Founders know investors always want to be helpful, and it comes from a good place. But the job is hard, and the endless stream of advice from mentors, advisors, the internet, our parents, and lots of other people who have never been in our shoes is a lot to sort through.
But sometimes, the simplest thing you can do is the most important and the most valuable. And it usually doesn’t take more than just being ‘human’. When a founder sends out an update, reply. Let them know you are listening and cheering them on. When they post on social media, comment, repost, and amplify. And always always do double opt-ins on intros.
What happens if Play Money fails?
We get it. We are a startup. This is a smart question to ask.
Play Money works with trusted industry partners like Citizens Bank and Plaid. SPVs are Delaware LLCs. The system of record of your ownership doesn’t just sit with a private company. It sits with a State — the actual OG of states. As long as Delaware is still standing, there is a record of your ownership.
Wrap up:
The Easy Button for Angel
New Deals Drop on Thursday
Everything on Play Money is geared around helping you build a diverse startup portfolio because diverse portfolios deliver better results.
We source deals from the most inspiring emerging fund managers and influencers. Follow your favorites or have us curate for you.
Play Money is partnered with Plaid on money movement and with Sydecare for investment management.
Bonus Tracks
This 2-minute data deep dive explains why we source deals from smaller funds.
This is the easiest-to-understand article on why Play Money is doubling down on diverse portfolios.
