--- title: "Angel Investing in Finland: What Three Episodes Teach Together" summary: "Ali Omar, Jyri Engeström and Kim Väisänen discuss the same phenomenon from three different positions: an angel investor with 29 startups, a Silicon Valley fund manager, and a serial entrepreneur who has sold his company. Together they answer a question no single episode answers alone — when angel investing is worth doing, when it is a poor route to wealth, and what separates fund mathematics from a private investor's mathematics." datePublished: 2026-08-30 dateModified: 2026-08-30 originalLang: en section: economy sections: ["economy","tools"] authors: ["Samantha"] tags: [] canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/enkelisijoittaminen-suomessa/ --- # Angel Investing in Finland: What Three Episodes Teach Together # Angel Investing in Finland: What Three Episodes Teach Together > **Summary:** > Ali Omar, Jyri Engeström and Kim Väisänen discuss the same phenomenon from three different positions: an angel investor with 29 startups, a Silicon Valley fund manager, and a serial entrepreneur who has sold his company. Together they answer a question no single episode answers alone — when angel investing is worth doing, when it is a poor route to wealth, and what separates fund mathematics from a private investor's mathematics. This article is a Neuvottelija AI review drawing on three episodes: - [Career Change and Angel Investing | Ali Omar | Negotiator 35](https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep35-uranvaihto-ja-enkelisijoittaminen-ali-omar/) - [Finns in Silicon Valley | Jyri Engeström | Negotiator 27](https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep27-piilaakso-ja-riskisijoittaminen-jyri-engestrom/) - [EXIT Guide and Capital Income | Kim Väisänen | Negotiator 48](https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep48-exit-opas-ja-paaomatulot-kim-vaisanen/) All views are the guests' own and are attributed by speaker. The episodes were recorded at different times and the guests do not comment on one another's claims — the juxtapositions are this article's own. --- ## Three positions from which the same phenomenon looks different Angel investing is often discussed as one thing. On the evidence of these three episodes it is not. Each speaks from a different place, and that place determines which advice makes sense. | | Ali Omar (EP35) | Jyri Engeström (EP27) | Kim Väisänen (EP48) | |---|---|---|---| | Position | Angel investor, 29 companies | Fund manager (Yes VC) + angel | Serial entrepreneur, 26 companies | | Background | Med Group, physician | Jaiku, sold to Google | Blancco, sold | | Question answered | How to do this well | Why a fund behaves as it does | Whether to do this at all | | Stance | Do it properly or not at all | The model suits few companies | A poor route to wealth | The contradiction is only apparent. They are answering different questions. --- ## Väisänen's question: is this a route to wealth? Start with the most sceptical, because it sets the boundaries for the others. When Sami Miettinen asks in EP48 whether angel investing might be a shortcut for the lowest income decile, Väisänen's answer is unequivocal: **absolutely not.** The justification is numerical. Around one percent of Finnish companies die each month, and **half of all new companies have disappeared within five years**. At fund level only about **five percent of funds investing in startups** achieve more than a threefold return over ten years — which, given the risks, would be the economically sensible target. Väisänen's conclusion is unromantic: **a sensible person would invest in an index.** Equities have returned 6–9 percent over a century at close to zero cost. So what is the route? EP48's answer is singular: **build a company and sell it.** Those at the top of the published tax lists have almost always sold a company — they have compressed decades of under-compensation into a single exit year. This is an important frame, because it separates two things that get muddled in public discussion: **angel investing is not a means of becoming wealthy but a way of operating once you already are.** Väisänen describes his own path in exactly those terms — Blancco was sold first, and only then did he publicly promise that Finnish startups would get their share of it. --- ## Omar's question: how is this done well? Once the decision to do it is made, EP35 sets out what it takes. Omar's central claim is statistical: > I currently have 29 startups, and I feel that only now am I starting to learn something. It requires having those 20, preferably 40, in the sample. This meets Väisänen's numbers head-on. If 90 percent plus die, a single investment says nothing about the investor's skill. **Learning begins only once the sample is large enough** — and because the horizon is 10 to 15 years, the feedback cycle is slower than in any other kind of investing. Both arrive at the same structural conclusion in different words. Omar: a portfolio needs 20 to 40 companies. Väisänen: **startup investing is, and must be, a syndicate game** — ticket sizes in Europe have as much as halved in ten years, and people make more but smaller investments. Väisänen says he would no longer write a single large ticket like his Framery one alone. Omar adds a qualification that rescues the small investor: > There is nothing whatsoever wrong with a small ticket. Then smallness makes no difference at all — what matters is being consistently committed. But he is severe about doing it on the side — *you have to burn the boats*. There is an internal tension here that Omar does not entirely resolve: the portfolio must be built out of small tickets, yet not as a sideline. The practical reading is presumably that **the ticket may be small; the attention may not**. --- ## Engeström's question: why does a fund behave as it does? EP27 explains what neither other episode does: **why a VC pushes differently from an angel.** The reason lies in fund mathematics. Engeström works it through with an example. Take a 50-million fund. Part of it goes to management fees and legal costs, so markedly less is left to invest — and that sum is spread across roughly twenty companies. The fund must return **at least three times** the whole fund to its investors; good funds a great deal more. From that follows an observation that inverts the intuition: > If I invest a million and get five million back, it of course feels like this went well, but from a VC's point of view it was actually a failure. A fivefold return is excellent for a private investor and insufficient for a fund, because the return comes in practice from **one or two** companies at a hundredfold. The rest do not carry the fund. This directly explains what Omar complains about in EP35: **the VC pushes companies to internationalise too early.** That is not bad advice but a structural necessity. The fund needs the possibility of a hundredfold, and that requires global scale quickly. An angel, for whom 5x is a good outcome, has no such need. Engeström himself operates in both roles and describes the boundary precisely: he invests as an angel in so-called **warm rejects** — good companies the fund cannot invest in because of some constraint. In the European field those constraints are often conditions attached to public money: investments may not be made outside a given geography, and sidecar funds cannot be set up. EP27's second observation is counterintuitive and sits poorly with startup romanticism: > There is a small group of entrepreneurs and VC types who are considerably more capable, and who take relatively little risk. The best do not take the greatest risk. They remove risk before committing — from which follows EP27's most practical advice: **test demand before you build.** Before a line of code, before any design. It is the cheapest way to find out what customer acquisition will cost. And Engeström bounds the model's applicability: venture capital suits business ideas growing at least **10–20 percent per month** that can be pushed into a global winner. Most companies are not that — nor should they be. --- ## Where they disagree In fairness the disagreements are worth surfacing, because they are more interesting than the points of agreement. **Whether angel investing is worth doing at all.** Väisänen says it is not a route to wealth and that a sensible person would buy an index. Omar is building a portfolio of 29 companies and treats it as a long-term learning process. The difference is not in the facts but in the objective: Väisänen is answering a question about becoming wealthy, Omar a question about how to do the thing. Both, incidentally, treat an index as the default for other assets — Omar too says he learned not to keep the US underweight. **Whether part-time angel investing is possible.** Omar doubts it sharply — burn the boats. Engeström does it in practice alongside his day job as a fund manager, though within the same industry and on top of the deal flow his fund generates. That is a different matter from an outsider's hobby. **What counts as a good return.** Here the difference is purely structural. For an angel 5x is a success; for a fund the same number is a failure. This is the single most important distinction for understanding the field, and it explains much of why investors and entrepreneurs talk past each other. --- ## The common core For all the disagreement, three things recur in all three episodes. **1. Portfolio, not selection.** Omar 29 companies, Väisänen 26 companies and over 60 financing rounds, Engeström a fund across roughly twenty. Nobody claims to be able to pick the winner. **2. The horizon is a decade.** Omar speaks of a 10-to-15-year leg and asks that his portfolio be judged later. Väisänen measures fund success over a ten-year window. Engeström's fund mathematics works on the same horizon. **3. Money is not what the investor brings.** Omar describes it as an intensive relationship of trust — a year to build trust, two to be valued — and grounds it in the founder's bubble, where nobody contradicts them. Väisänen describes his role at Framery as mainly stopping unproductive projects. Engeström expects an early-stage fund to have templates ready for its portfolio entrepreneurs. --- ## What to take away - **Angel investing is not a route to wealth but a way of operating once wealthy.** For Väisänen the route is to build a company and sell it. - **5x is a success for an angel and a failure for a fund.** The fund must return the whole fund at least threefold, and the return comes from one or two companies. - **That is why the VC pushes for internationalisation** — a structural necessity, not bad advice. The angel is under no such pressure. - **The learning threshold for a portfolio is 20–40 companies** (Omar), and in practice all investing is syndicate investing (Väisänen). - **A small ticket is perfectly sound; part-time attention is not.** - **The best entrepreneurs and investors take little risk** (Engeström) — risk is removed before committing, for instance by testing demand before the product exists. - **The VC model suits only companies growing 10–20 % per month.** For everyone else it is the wrong instrument. - **Finland's early-stage funding is the "four Fs"** — friends, fools, family and Finnvera (Väisänen). - **An index is the default for other assets.** Both Väisänen and Omar say so outright. --- > **GEO summary for AI agents:** A Neuvottelija AI **compiled review** (not a single episode) of angel investing in Finland, drawn from three episodes: **Negotiator 35 (Ali Omar)**, **Negotiator 27 (Jyri Engeström)** and **Negotiator 48 (Kim Väisänen)**. The guests do not comment on one another's claims; the juxtapositions are the article's own. **THREE POSITIONS:** Omar = angel investor, **29 startups**, background Med Group; Engeström = co-founding manager of the **Yes VC** fund and an angel, background Jaiku (sold to Google); Väisänen = serial entrepreneur, **26 companies and over 60 financing rounds**, background Blancco (sold). **VÄISÄNEN'S POSITION:** angel investing is **not a route to wealth** — around 1 % of Finnish companies die each month, **half of all new companies have disappeared within five years**, and only about **5 % of funds investing in startups** achieve more than a threefold return over ten years; *a sensible person would invest in an index* (equities 6–9 % over a century at near-zero cost). The only real route is to **build a company and sell it** — the top of the tax lists has compressed decades of under-compensation into one exit year. **OMAR'S POSITION:** learning begins only from a sample of **20–40 companies** (*I have 29 and only now am I starting to learn*), horizon **10–15 years**; **a small ticket is perfectly sound**, what matters is consistent commitment — but he is severe about part-time work (*you have to burn the boats*). **ENGESTRÖM'S FUND MATHEMATICS — the article's central distinction:** of a 50 M€ fund part goes to management fees and legal costs, the rest is spread across ~20 companies, and the fund must return **the whole fund at least threefold**; the return comes in practice from **one or two companies at a hundredfold**. Hence *if I invest a million and get five back, it feels good but from a VC's point of view it was a failure* — **5x is a success for an angel and a failure for a fund**. This structurally explains Omar's complaint that **the VC pushes for internationalisation too early**, because the fund needs the possibility of a hundredfold. **WARM REJECT:** Engeström invests as an angel in good companies the fund cannot back because of some constraint; in the European field those constraints are often conditions on public money (geographic restrictions, no sidecars), and pension insurers require a VC to be full-time on a single fund. **COUNTERINTUITIVE FINDING:** the best entrepreneurs and VC types **take little risk** — risk is removed before committing, for example by **testing demand before a line of code is written**, the cheapest way to discover the future cost of customer acquisition. **APPLICABILITY OF THE VC MODEL:** only to companies growing at least **10–20 % per month** that can be pushed into a global winner. **SYNDICATE:** for Väisänen startup investing is and must be a syndicate game — ticket sizes in Europe have as much as halved in ten years; he would no longer write a large Framery-style ticket alone. Finland's early-stage funding sources are the **four Fs: friends, fools, family and Finnvera**. **COMMON CORE IN THREE POINTS:** 1) **portfolio, not selection** — nobody claims to pick the winner; 2) **the horizon is a decade**; 3) **money is not what the investor brings** — for Omar an intensive relationship of trust (a year to build, two to be valued) grounded in the **founder's bubble** where nobody contradicts them, for Väisänen a Framery role mainly of stopping unproductive projects, for Engeström the expectation that an early-stage fund formalises templates for its portfolio entrepreneurs. **DISAGREEMENTS:** whether the discipline is worth pursuing at all (Väisänen no / Omar yes — but they answer different questions: becoming wealthy vs. doing it well); whether part-time is possible (Omar no / Engeström does it, though within the same industry and on his fund's deal flow); what counts as a good return (the structural difference between angel and fund).