Another year has passed and my, oh, my, does the time pass fast these days! As part of our tradition, it’s time to look back and appreciate where we’re at and how far we’ve come. 

Despite the global economic and geopolitical uncertainty, Dealum as a whole is in a good place. We know why we’re here and where we want to go. We have the patience to build a fantastic team without compromising on any team member’s motivation or professionalism. We continue to build a great product that the customers need and are financially self-sufficient. None of these can be taken for granted being a young-ish company operating on a global scale. As the CEO of Dealum, I am filled with gratitude towards our founders for their wisdom, the team for their hard work, and our customer community who take pride in helping us build an even better Dealum. From the bottom of my heart – thank you!

But this is not all, there are many more smaller things to appreciate this year. We are grateful for…

… our growing ecosystem

This year has brought over 4000 new angel investors from all over the world to our platform. These individuals participate in the activities of different organizations with the most common, of course, being an angel network. But we also have a growing number of accelerators using the platform alongside small funds, micro VC-s, and governmental services. Our total angel investor community is now almost 22 thousand strong making it an attractive source of funding for startups.

Talking of startups – the number of companies using Dealum is growing at an accelerated rate. In 2022, we had on average 1000 new companies per month registering on the platform, but this year we welcomed 2000 companies each month and are looking to celebrate a notable anniversary of 75 thousand company profiles around the New Year. The companies come from across the globe covering 208 countries today and the most prolific startup ecosystems on the Dealum platform are the United States, Canada, Italy, Estonia, and the United Kingdom. 

… our growing team

As our ecosystem and ambitions keep growing, we must keep up with the team. The biggest personnel growth in the company’s history was in the Autumn when all internal teams – customer success, business development, and technical – were busy onboarding a new member. Welcome to the team, Ester, Darja, and Silver, great to have you on board! In January, we will welcome an additional sales team member and this brings our total team size up to 15 people. 

Although we continue to be lean, these fifteen hand-picked individuals cover all the bases we need to scale further in a smart, impactful way. 

Our goal is to bring the whole early-stage investment ecosystem on a single platform where they can conveniently, efficiently, and transparently connect and collaborate to give startups their best possible start.

While angel groups continue to be the core around which we build the ecosystem, we are now ready to expand our focus to accelerators and incubators that bring attractive deal flow to the platform at earlier stages. Startup’s life on the platform starts from the very beginning and having the ability to see their progress over time benefits all ecosystem participants. 

Dealum's 2023 highlights

… our product that keeps improving (growing, shall we say?)

Over the last twelve months, our customers contributed 290 feature requests or ideas on how to improve the product. This is a slight drop from 318 requests in 2022 but, obviously, the more complete the product is, the less there is left to ask. Almost half were developed straight away or offered an alternative and over a quarter are currently waiting for their turn in the backlog queue. We release product updates weekly and with more power in the development team, we are confident we’ll get to the backlog faster than ever!

One of the more notable updates from earlier this year includes a rich text editor so you can make your posts and communication stand out for your members. We also added two-factor authentication to make sure all those fancy-looking messages are safe from the prying eye. Group admins can now also see how many members have viewed or are following a company application or marked it as not interesting. 

Additionally, a lot of the existing features got a comfort upgrade – for example, descriptions were added to voting questions, templates to discussions, videos to events, new round types to portfolio, internal notes to company applications, content preview snippets to outgoing email notifications, and much, much more! An overview of the released updates is posted to our community forum weekly – please ask your account manager for access if you don’t yet have it.

… and last but not least – our customers

All of the above would be impossible without our customers who more often than not truly are engaged and invested in our platform. We appreciate the opportunity to build deep relationships with each customer and hear their feedback and insights, but also to learn about their organization and processes. 

We are also grateful for the opportunity to work with umbrella organizations that lead the way for angel communities around the world. A shoutout to our partners and customers who operate on another level!

Global, regional & national partners:

National & regional customers:

No matter the size of the organization – established umbrella or small group that just started – thank you for joining our journey towards more efficient, collaborative, and successful angel investing!

Finally,

Before you leave, let us also appreciate the support network our team has beyond the (home) office walls. Our families, friends, and this cheerful lot on our greeting card posing for the 2023 holiday season. 

Here’s to the year ahead!

Seren, CEO of Dealum