A VeeCats Initiative

The Operator
Circle.

A working room for founders who also invest.

Monthly pitch sessions. A continuous deal channel. A peer group of operators who know what they are looking at because they are doing it themselves. Members invest in each other's companies when the company is worth backing, and not otherwise.

Register Interest → How it works
Founders make the best angels. The Circle is built around that. – Founding idea
What it is

A working room. Not a fund,
not a syndicate.

Members meet monthly. Anyone with a round open can present. Anyone can post a deal to the channel between sessions. Members decide for themselves whether to put a cheque in, and back the founders they want to back.

The room runs on the simple idea that founders who have raised, hired, and shipped tend to be the most useful people on a cap table. Bringing them together makes them easier to find.

Who is in the room

Founders who also write cheques.

Members tend to share three things. Not a checklist, more a description of the people who get the most out of the room and contribute the most to it.

I.

Currently running a venture

Trading or close to it. Real customers, or a credible path to them. The Circle is for operators in the work.

II.

Active as an angel

A handful of personal angel cheques in recent years. Members deploy their own capital and have views on where it goes.

III.

Operating depth that compounds

A domain you know well enough that your opinion is worth something. Sector, technical, regulatory, or category experience.

How it works

A monthly room. A live deal channel.
No fund, no pool, no matching.

What the Circle does

  • Monthly pitch session. Members open the floor and present rounds.
  • A continuous deal channel between sessions. Live rounds, terms, links.
  • Shared diligence on deals members are looking at outside the Circle.
  • A peer group for the operating side: hiring, pricing, fundraising, the rest.
  • Warm introductions into the wider operator network when they help.

How decisions get made

  • Members invest as individuals, on their own account, with their own money.
  • Each decision is made on the company's merits. The Circle does not coordinate or pool capital.
  • No quotas, no targets, no expectation that any deal gets backed by anyone.
  • No carry, no introduction fees, no economics flowing between members.
  • Cheques range from angel-sized through to lead positions, depending on the member and the deal.

The structure is deliberately plain. Members are independent angels who happen to be in the same room.

The practical bits

How to join,
and what it costs.

The Circle keeps its overhead light so members can keep their attention on the work. The structure below is what that looks like in practice.

Joining

By introduction or by registering interest. A short conversation with the membership committee follows.

Fee

An annual membership fee covering operating costs, events, and admin. No carry, no performance fee.

Cadence

Monthly pitch sessions in London. Always-on deal channel between sessions. Optional dinners through the year.

Conduct

A short code covers confidentiality and what members say publicly about other members' companies. The usual things.

The most useful person on most cap tables is another founder.

Someone who has hired the wrong people, raised in the wrong markets, picked the wrong investors, and shipped anyway. Someone whose advice is shaped by what they wish they had known.

The Circle is built around that kind of capital.

Register interest

Tell us a bit about what you are building.

Leave your details and a sentence or two on the venture you are running. The committee will be in touch to set up a conversation. Members are introduced in cohorts a few times a year.

The Circle is based in London with members from across the UK and Europe. Sessions are in person where it matters, on Zoom where it does not.
We read every registration personally.
✓  Received. Someone from the committee will be in touch.