How the club works
How can I join?
To join the Club, you must sign up for one of the 5 membership levels, ranging from Bronze to Diamond. Each level has three parameters:
- The maximum authorized investment in each fundraising campaign,
- The maximum cumulative investment authorized for the year,
- The number of priority vouchers associated with your membership, which guarantee your place in a fundraising event, even if it is oversubscribed.
Your profile will also be subject to selection. Blast. makes it a priority to guarantee Club members exclusive, high-quality deals - around twenty each year. In order to allow everyone to invest, Blast. therefore accepts very few new members. To become one of them, you must apply via this link. This will be followed by an interview with an investor relations officer who will present your application to the Blast selection committee.
Can the membership fee be used to invest in operations?
Your membership fee covers your access to the Club, its network, training courses and organized events, as well as access to the operations presented. It is payable on a one-off basis and therefore cannot be used for investment. For each fundraising round in which you wish to invest, you can credit your bank account opened in your name with our payment service provider, Lemonway, with the amount of your choice.
What is the difference between Blast. and a traditional fund or a business angel club?
Before Blast., to gain access to the right start-up files, you had to either be a renowned business angel, or have significant financial resources or an excellent network. This allowed you to gain access through a renowned investment fund (average entry ticket €250k) or a top business angel club, provided you could invest €50/100k in each operation in order to interest the founders of high-potential startups.
Thanks to the exclusive network of Anthony Bourbon and the business angels associated with the Club (see here), Blast. gives you access to off-market files, those that are never presented to the general public, starting at €1,000, whether or not you have a large fortune or network. Also, unlike a fund, you remain in control of your investment since you are the one who decides in which startup you want to invest. Finally, from 2024 onwards, you will have the unique opportunity to resell your shares to other members, without waiting for an event that would normally allow it, typically between 7 and 10 years in a fund or business angel club.
What services does Blast. provide for its members?
In addition to access to the exclusive deals offered to you by Anthony Bourbon and his network of renowned business angels, joining the Club will allow you to create a unique professional network and train yourself in investing in startups. Throughout your membership, you will have access to:
- A private discussion forum to discuss opportunities and strategies, with our experts and our community,
- Exclusive training courses,
- Regular private events: webinars, meetings and round tables with Anthony Bourbon, Eric Larchevêque, Thomas Rebaud, Jonathan Anguelov, etc.
What are the different levels of membership?
There are 5 levels of membership: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Each level has a different price and benefits, allowing you to invest in more than 20 fundraisings per year.
Here are the different levels of membership, valid for 1 year:
- Bronze: €1,000 with a maximum total investment of €10k over 1 year (max €2K per fundraising)
- Silver: €1,500 with a maximum total investment of €25k over 1 year (max €5K per fundraising).
- Gold: €3,000 with a maximum total investment of €50k over 1 year (max €15K per fundraising).
- Platinum: €5,000 with a maximum total investment of €100k over 1 year (max €30k per fundraising).
- Diamond: €10,000 with an unlimited total maximum investment over 1 year (max €100k per fundraising).
What happens when my membership expires?
Memberships are valid for one year. Any unused investment credits and priority vouchers can be carried forward if a new subscription is taken out the following year.
When you are no longer a member, you will of course retain all your participations, but you will not be able to subscribe to new fundraising rounds or access the notice board. In this case, your unused credits will expire at the same time as your membership.
Can I resell my membership?
Memberships are strictly personal, valid for 1 year and cannot be transferred.
Can I invest through a company?
You can invest with a company, as an individual, or both, on each operation. You have the choice of creating one or more profiles when you join the Club, and throughout your membership.
What are the investment costs?
To access the Club, you must first pay a membership fee, ranging from €1,000 to €10,000 depending on the level you choose.
Then, you pay standard investment fund fees for the fundraising rounds in which you participate. These fees are our remuneration for the intermediation carried out with each startup and the full legal management of the transaction for each member:
- A one-off structuring fee ranging from 3% to 5% depending on the level of membership,
- An operating fee to finance Blast's role as intermediary between the company, the dedicated investment vehicle and the investors, by structuring the capital increase and coordinating and supervising the operations required for the investment (1% per year for each vehicle, for a maximum of 5 years).
- A commission of 20% on any capital gains generated.
Financed startups
What are the criteria for selecting the start-ups presented?
Blast. receives over 300 start-up decks per month. In order to optimize the selection, we do an initial sorting based on our pre-selection criteria:
- A minimum fundraising of €500k,
- An established company,
- Founders who are 100% committed to the project,
- Proven commercial proof of concept (convincing turnover or ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) OR technical proof of concept in the context of a co-investment.
What is the selection process?
If the selection criteria are met, Blast. carries out a rigorous analysis of the project based on 5 key criteria: the team, its project, the market, the financial elements, and the conditions of the planned operation.
Blast.'s management team then meets with each founder. The investment department also carries out reputation analyses, product tests, and competitive and sectoral monitoring. Finally, if necessary, a Blast. expert in the sector in question is brought in to reinforce the initial conviction.
The investment opportunity is then presented to the selection committee, which consists of Blast's founders, the investment department, the operations department and the legal department.
How long does it take to process a request?
Our analysts will do their utmost to get back to you within a maximum of one week.
What return should I expect?
The return you can expect from investing in start-ups can vary considerably and it is difficult to provide an accurate estimate. Some investments can generate significant returns, sometimes several times the original amount, while others may result in a total loss. In general, investments in start-ups are considered high risk, but they also offer high potential returns.
It is not uncommon for venture capital investors to aim for an average return of several times their initial investment, for example 5x, 10x, or even more, on the most significant successes in their portfolio to make up for losses on other less successful investments. However, it is crucial to emphasize that these high potential returns are associated with high risk, and there is no guarantee of success.
When can I resell my shares?
The average holding period for startup investments is generally 7 to 10 years. Blast. includes a liquidity clause in each shareholders' agreement in order to organize the resale of shares after 5 years. Also, in 2024, Blast. will allow each member of the Club to resell their shares to other members directly on the platform in 2 clicks.
Regulation and taxation
How is Blast's activity legally regulated?
Blast. is a platform approved by the Autorité des Marches Financiers as a Crowdfunding Service Provider under the number FP-2023-12. Blast. is registered under the identifier 730073 by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) as a Lemonway payment service provider agent.
Why is a KYC/KYB mandatory before investing?
Blast Club must identify the economic beneficiaries of investments through Know Your Customer (KYC) or Know Your Business (KYB) measures in order to comply with the various European and international regulations on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.
What are the tax benefits?
There are 2 potential tax benefits to investing in startups:
- Corporate income tax exemption: thanks to the corporate income tax exemption for SMEs related to the Madelin law, anyone subject to income tax can deduct 50% of the sums invested in the capital of French SMEs, provided that the shares acquired are held for at least five years.
- Contribution and transfer: under certain conditions, an entrepreneur selling the shares of his company can reduce the taxation of his capital gains on the sale by reinvesting part of the proceeds of the sale.
Are Blast. investments eligible for reuse?
Investments through Blast., when offered as shares, fall within the scope of your reinvestment obligations as part of a transfer contribution. We invite you to verify this information with a tax professional.
What is the taxation of stock transactions?
Capital gains on the sale of your shares are taxed from the first euro and fall under the scope of standard income tax. These proceeds must be declared on your income tax return. It is then up to you to decide whether they will be subject to:
- either the Single Flat Tax (PFU or flat tax) at the overall rate of 30% (including 12.8% of IR and 17.2% of social security contributions),
- or to the progressive income tax scale, in which case the amount of tax will be adjusted by the tax authorities according to your marginal tax rate.
Legal structuring of investments
Who decides what operations I am going to invest in?
You alone decide which operation you want to invest in. Blast. presents 2 to 3 operations per month for which you will systematically have access to a complete kit to help you make your choice:
- A deck
- A financial forecast
- A video pitch from the founders
- A video of Anthony and our experts explaining why they selected this startup
- Videos of specialized guests, who know the startup inside out
- A dedicated discussion forum where you will be able to exchange views with other members, as well as with the founders, Anthony Bourbon and experts.
- A live event where you can ask the founders your questions.
What are the risks of investing in startups?
Investing in unlisted companies involves a risk of capital loss and liquidity risk. Only invest money that you do not immediately need and diversify your savings.
How does an investment work?
We inform you of the launch of a new operation by email, on the Blast discussion forum and directly via its online publication on the platform. You have 15 days to inform yourself as best you can in order to decide if you want to file an intention on this file. Before submitting your intention, we ask you to credit your Blast. account opened with our payment provider Lemonway with the amount of your Blast account.
At the end of the intent period, you will receive the amount of your definitive allocation by email. You can then sign your subscription form electronically. You will then officially be a shareholder in the investment vehicle that will invest in the start-up. The investment in the start-up's capital is made approximately 15 days after the intentions have been finalised.
Following your investment, you will receive your investment certificate, followed by quarterly reports on the start-up's development throughout the period of Blast.'s investment in its capital.
What is the legal structure of investments?
Each Blast. fundraising campaign brings together the participating investors in a special purpose vehicle (SPV) dedicated to this operation. This SPV then invests in the target start-up and becomes a shareholder.
Why invest via an SPV?
Investing in an SPV offers several advantages: access to deals even with smaller tickets, possibility of additional liquidity within the SPV, easier management of the capitalization table and more negotiating power with incoming investment funds during subsequent financing rounds.
What are my rights and obligations as an SPV shareholder?
As an investor, you will have the right to access information shared by the target start-up with the SPV, in compliance with the shareholders' agreement concluded with the target. This confidential information is subject to confidentiality clauses in the SPV's statutes. You will also be able to sell your SPV shares to other co-investors within the SPV, to another member of the Blast Club, and when the SPV receives an offer to buy the shares held in the target start-up.
Who is the SPV representative?
Anthony Bourbon, as President of Blast, represents the SPV. Blast.'s investment department also has a seat on the strategic board of each startup, which meets once a quarter. This enables us to observe the company's evolution, growth or failures, and report back to the members.
What happens if the club cannot raise the required amount?
A fundraising is considered valid if 75% or more of the amount to be raised is collected. In the event that this 75% is not reached, the investment is canceled and the funds are returned to the investors.
What happens if the club raises more than the amount requested?
If the financing round is oversubscribed, the Blast. algorithm will select the investors who can invest and their allocations. To find out more about how allocations work - see this article.
What does a member have access to after the fundraising has closed?
As an investor and member of the Club, you will have access to the startup's quarterly activity reports directly on your Blast account once the fundraising has been completed. You will also be able to exchange views with the startup's founders via the dedicated discussion forum.