After a decade in VC, Enrico Mellis realized that the main constraint for great founders isn't capital; it's the people. When he launched Animal, a syndication company, he set out on a mission to match the best founders to the best angels. Instead of raising a fund and imposing a thesis, he asks each founder: who do you actually need? What are the challenges you're facing? Then, he handpicks angels to match each company's specific needs and circumstances. For a consumer startup, that might mean celebrities or retail veterans. For a defense company, those might be political advisors or enterprise leaders.
The result is a better fit and better odds of success, all without the traditional fund structure, management fees, and misaligned incentives of standard VC funds.
Enrico's philosophy, better capital through better matching, is why Animal and Roundtable became natural partners. He needed infrastructure that could run seamlessly in the background, handling all the operational weight of SPVs without slowing him down. Roundtable delivered exactly that: streamlined KYC and KYB, clean cap tables, and an exceptional team, freeing him to do what actually creates value: matching the best founders with the best angels.
Key takeaways:
- Animal flipped traditional syndication: Enrico builds syndicates around founders, carefully matching each company with tailored angels, whether that's retail experts for consumer startups or political advisors for defense companies.
- Skin in the game aligns everything. By co-investing his own capital in every deal and taking no management fees, Enrico's judgment is backed with skin in the game, making him credible with both angels and founders.
- Roundtable functions as Animal's infrastructure layer, handling the operational burden of Luxembourg SPVs, letting Enrico focus entirely on matching founders with the right angels.
- Roundtable removes friction without removing control. As Animal plans to grow over the next 12 months across pre-seed to Series A startups, Roundtable's streamlined KYC, KYB, and clean cap table management will be essential in scaling the syndicate without additional overhead.
Roundtable: Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Enrico Mellis: I've been working in venture capital for nearly a decade. Before that, I was an operator at a startup called Foodora, where I joined early and stayed through our acquisition by Delivery Hero and subsequent IPO with their platform.
From there, I moved to Project A, where I arrived at a pivotal moment. We did investments into companies such as Trade Republic, Sennder and many more; that experience shaped how I think and invest today.
After that, I switched to Lakestar to lead their early-stage strategy, investing in companies like Fyxer, SE3 Labs, Arx Robotics, and Ravical.
Then, at the end of last year, I decided I wanted to start my own firm. I saw a gap in the market for what I'm doing; I became a venture partner at Lakestar and launched Animal, which is what I call a syndication company. Currently, I'm a one-man operation doing it all on my own, building a lot of my stack with AI tooling.
Roundtable: Could you tell me more about Animal's model?
Enrico Mellis: Animal's core principle is to combine the best angels with the best founders. Unlike most syndicates, where the syndicate gets the allocation and founders don't care who joins, I try to find the best possible angels and family offices to match them to the specific challenges of a particular business and its founder. For example:
- For a consumer company, it might be celebrities, athletes, or people in media or retail.
- For B2B or defense, it might be political advisors or leadership from large enterprises in manufacturing.
- Then there are exited founders, who've built and sold companies; those are incredibly valuable for founders to have on board.
- Even founders whose companies imploded can provide a lot of value because of the experience and mistakes they can help you avoid.
There's really no limit to who could be part of this, as long as they are able to help. First, I ask founders what kind of allocation they imagine and work with them to understand what they need, and then I hunt for the right profiles from my network.
As a result, I get into cap tables that most syndicates don't, because I provide something better: better capital, and, importantly, better fit.
I usually join rounds that somebody else is leading: we've done investments with Andreessen Horowitz, Singular, Plural, and others. On top of that, I have my own personal angel activity, co-investing with firms like Accel and Sequoia.
So far, we've done 9 SPVs, 7 of them with Roundtable. Two have been announced: Peec AI with Singular and Lio with Andreessen Horowitz. The other ones are still in stealth mode, but I'm sure they'll be announced soon.
Roundtable: What's the investment thesis of Animal?
Enrico Mellis: I focus on pre-seed, seed, and Series A companies. I don't have an overly deep investment thesis because I've learned that these can be a trap.
With Trade Republic, for example, I would have had the wrong thesis: I thought Germans don't like trading stocks, but the team proved me wrong. With HOLY, an electrolyte drink and energy powder company, I don't think anyone would have had a thesis for that, yet it's one of my best performing angel investments.
So the core question usually is: is this an amazing team I'd want to work with? If the answer is yes, I invest. At the pre-seed and seed stage, you don't have a lot of data anyway.
That said, I am quite interested in certain topics. Because of Europe's unique geopolitical and macroeconomic position and the challenges we face, there are distinct themes that will be interesting in the coming years:
- Defense
- Robotics, Industry 4.0 and the reindustrialization of Europe
- Nearshoring of manufacturing capabilities
- Modernizing our enterprise landscape and ERPs
I don't think the next Facebook will come from Europe, but I think the next SAP could. But this is not a strict thesis; often I back an exceptionally great team regardless of their field.
Roundtable: How do you assess founders and companies? What are your key criteria?
Enrico Mellis: I focus on the following factors:
- First, the team: have they achieved some form of milestones of greatness before? It could be professional sports, entrepreneurial endeavors, or excelling in university research. Greatness has many forms, but there needs to be proof that those people are comfortable with being uncomfortable for a long time.
- Second, are they applying their time and talent to the right market for them, at the right moment? I don't think VCs should ask that question too broadly because it leads to herd mentality. Incredible things happen a little ahead of the curve. Look at Helsing: everyone thought defense was crazy, but it's become an incredible company. That said, I obviously look at the market's overall direction: I try not to invest in horses when there are cars.
- Then, depending on the stage, I look at what the company has already achieved. Have they succeeded in something that could be interpreted as a proxy toward future success? Strong signals are key.
As an example, we could take two edge cases:
- A young and green team, tackling a hard market with almost no money raised, but they found a scrappy way to get ahead and already have traction and growing ARR.
- A team that has worked at great companies like Stripe, has all the logos, and has made a lot of money previously, but the first thing they do is build a pitch deck and raise money instead of using their resources and network to get something going.
In this instance, I'd rather back the young team: their attitude towards entrepreneurship is a much stronger signal to me.
Roundtable: What makes your approach different from traditional venture capital?
Enrico Mellis: In most VC funds, many people making investment decisions weren't involved in raising the funds. With Animal, I invest my own money first. That changes how I decide, and it means my downside is identical to any angel who invests alongside me.
Essentially, my savings function as my own fund. The pain of accumulating them over the last 10 years makes me think very hard about whether I should invest. This credibility matters and helps build confidence. An angel will trust my judgment more if my downside matches theirs, and if my investment hurts equally when it goes to zero. That's a non-negotiable for Animal.
Roundtable: How involved do the angels you bring on typically become?
Enrico Mellis: The angels I bring in are exceptional, and the most valuable thing they offer usually isn't day-to-day availability. It's that at the decisive moment, they've already solved the exact problem in front of you, and they move the trajectory of the company. Part of my job is calibrating that: matching each founder with people whose strengths fit what the company actually needs, and making sure that when a founder reaches out, it's to the right person about the right thing. Some angels want to be deeply hands-on, often exited founders who want back in and remember what they wished they'd had early on. Others are most powerful in a few decisive moments. I design for both, and I stay in the middle to make sure every introduction creates real value.
Roundtable: That makes a lot of sense. Switching gears, I'd love to know more about your experience with our platform. What made you choose Roundtable?
Enrico Mellis: In short, I needed an infrastructure provider, and I really liked the way Roundtable functions.
The team is fantastic, they are always eager to help me and explain how everything works. I'm very glad to see them immediately jump in whenever I had questions; we've even had a couple of late-night calls and I really appreciate the level of dedication. With other providers, that would have been a very different experience!
I also really like the platform. I'm a one-man operation, and I really don't want to lose operational leverage by caring about things that don't add value to my work. That's exactly where Roundtable came in.
And, lastly, there are several things about Luxembourg SPVs that make them quite interesting, compared to SPVs in other jurisdictions.
Roundtable: What does your deal process look like with Roundtable?
Enrico Mellis: Once I have a handshake agreement with the founders, I set up the deal page and put all the necessary information there. I don't usually post memos because I want to be respectful to founders and make sure information doesn't get circulated too widely. Then, I speak to the founder to understand what type of angels they'd like on their cap table and what problems they're looking to solve. Based on their needs, I suggest people who could genuinely help.
It's not always obvious to founders or angels why certain matches make sense, but after about 50 investments, I've noticed a pattern: the most valuable angels aren't usually the ones helping with day-to-day problems. Instead, they're the ones you call once or twice a year, but when you do, they're so specifically talented or experienced in exactly what you need help with, that they could actually change your trajectory.
So after that conversation with the founder, I reach out to angels individually and explain why I think a deal is a great fit for them specifically. Then, depending on the process, either angels meet the founder directly, or I introduce them to each other at a later stage.
Once everything is in place and the KYC and KYB are all taken care of, we move through closing with the platform. Thanks to Roundtable, this part is very straightforward.
Roundtable: What feedback on the platform have you received from angel investors and founders?
Enrico Mellis: Overall, their feedback has been very positive. Many people didn't know about Roundtable, and angels tend to ask a lot of questions. I like the platform's easy-to-use interface, and especially the fact that repeat investors can reuse their KYC and KYB. Those processes take time and effort to complete, so everyone really appreciates that.
Roundtable helps everyone focus on what they're really great at:
- Founders have a clean cap table and get a lot of added value from their investors without creating a governance headache.
- Angels focus on their investments without a lot of paperwork and chaos from messy KYC and KYB processes.
- Syndicate managers like me can zero in on matching the best founders with the best angels.
Roundtable: What does the future hold for Animal?
Enrico Mellis: The venture landscape is changing quickly, so I'm genuinely curious to see how it evolves.
Personally, I hope to do this for a long time. I don't have aspirations of building a fund; I like the way the current model works. I'm still in the early stages, building things out operationally and on the product side, and there's still so much to do. I'm literally building things right now: my Claude Code is working tirelessly as we speak.
The demand is there: Animal launched not long ago, and the first deals have been with some very interesting companies. I try to grow sensibly, bringing in people who can truly add value and who I can present to founders with conviction. I'm also not looking to maximise deal volume for its own sake; after all, it's my money, too. If I don't see anything worthwhile for two months, that's fine; I won't rush into investments just to keep moving.
My mandate isn't to deploy at a pre-agreed pace the way a fund would. I don't have LPs in the traditional sense, so I don't need to scale on anyone else's timeline. Instead, I want to be in the best investments. Economically, one deal is enough if it's the right one.
Roundtable: What advice would you give to syndicate managers who are just starting out?
Enrico Mellis: There are a lot of young people, either working in startups or running communities, who have easy access to founders. But the real question is: who are you to both sides? Who are you to the founders, and who are you to the investors?
If you're just starting out, it might be worth partnering with somebody who has more experience and can make a compelling case to angels about why a deal is worth their attention. That said, if you work in a specific industry and have operational experience, that's already a strong reason for people to work with you. Lead with it.
Two things are essential:
- Skin in the game. Put your own money at risk, and people will know you're deliberate with your strategy.
- A strong customer focus. Think carefully about who your customer is and how to give them joy. How can you help each founder? How can you help each angel? Angels want to invest in great companies and work with great founders. Founders want to increase their odds of success, and to work with experienced people who'll help them achieve that.
Roundtable: Would you recommend Roundtable to others?
Enrico Mellis: At this point I should probably get a kickback for all the people I've referred (laughs). I do it all the time.
{{clients_banner}}
