#Mashup Angels' Fund Structure: ₩50M-300M Checks, a 4-Year Investment Period
Mashup Angels' Individual Investment Fund No. 2 is a ₩7.7B seed-only fund structured with a 10-year term (extendable by 2 years) and a 4-year investment period. It writes checks of ₩50M-300M per deal, filling the gap right before Series A. It's too small for founders chasing a Series A, and arrives too early for companies still living on government grants — the size is aimed precisely at the space in between.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Fund name | Mashup Angels Individual Investment Fund No. 2 |
| Fund size | ₩7.7B |
| Fund term | 10 years (extendable by 2) |
| Investment period | 4 years |
| Primary stage | Seed |
| Check size | ₩50M-300M |
| Investment focus | Internet, mobile, commerce, SaaS, AI, gaming — ICT broadly |
#The 3-9 Week Fast Track: How It Differs from a Typical VC
Typical VCs split the process into a preliminary and a final investment committee, with a separate due diligence phase in between, taking anywhere from 4 weeks to 7 months. Mashup Angels runs the pitch meeting and the investment committee back-to-back on the same day, compressing that entire stage. There's no separate partner presentation — the founder's own pitch functions as the investment committee presentation itself.
| Stage | Duration | Mashup Angels' Approach |
|---|---|---|
| First meeting | Within 1 week | 40% conversion rate — they believe early-stage decks alone can't tell the full story, so they take the meeting |
| Follow-up meeting & short report | 1-3 weeks | Decide whether to keep watching |
| Pitch meeting = investment committee | 2 hours to 1 week | Preliminary and final combined — any team that pitches goes straight to the investment committee, 100% of the time |
| Light due diligence | 1 day | No complex accounting — just shareholder structure, cash balance, debt, and average monthly burn |
| Contract & wire transfer | Days to 3 weeks | Based on standard RCPS (redeemable convertible preferred stock) terms |
| Total | 3-9 weeks | As fast as 3 weeks on the fast track |
#Scoring Weights: Team 50%, Pain Point 25%, Market 15%
At the seed stage, team accounts for half of Mashup Angels' scoring. Between team and market, team carries far more weight. The market doesn't need to be huge — as long as it's not small, it clears the bar. In other words, a deck that tries to differentiate itself through market size is leading with a lower-priority criterion.
| Evaluation Criterion | Weight | Concrete Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Team (organizational capability + attitude) | 50% | Size of ambition, tenacity, execution ability, cohesion, background match |
| Clarity of the pain point behind the business model | 25% | Is this a problem customers will actually pay to solve? |
| Market growth & differentiated competitive edge | 15% | A market that's at least not small, plus a clear edge |
| Other (financials, contracts, etc.) | 10% | Shareholder structure, cash balance, debt, average monthly burn |
#The Preferred Background Matrix: Which Teams Earn Bonus Points
Mashup Angels runs a fairly explicit set of preferred founder backgrounds by sector. Check where your team fits, and if it doesn't fit anywhere, you need to make a stronger case for why your team specifically has earned the right to solve this problem.
| Business Area | Preferred Background | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Online services & e-commerce | Alumni of major internet portals or large e-commerce companies | Teams from companies like Naver, Kakao, Coupang, or Danggeun (Korea's neighborhood marketplace app) |
| Tech & deep tech | Teams who left a company because they couldn't pursue their engineering ambitions internally | Spinoffs from large-company R&D divisions |
| All sectors | Serial entrepreneurs or teams with prior startup experience | Including exits or failures |
| Unclear match | Judged case-by-case with extra time and business-model discussion | 1-3 additional weeks of follow-up meetings |
#Decision Structure: Not Unanimous Consent, but "No Objections"
Mashup Angels' investment committee doesn't require unanimous approval. All partners, venture partners, and associates attend, and a deal passes as long as no one objects — staying neutral or abstaining is allowed. That said, the process can't even begin unless the deal's lead partner or venture partner is genuinely motivated to champion it, since their operating principle is to pair every portfolio company with two dedicated points of contact post-investment.
- Gate 1 — the deal's lead partner or associate has to be genuinely motivated (without this, a pitch meeting never even gets scheduled)
- Gate 2 — no objections from other partners or venture partners
- A backstop mechanism — supplementary materials can be requested in advance to win over other partners, or the founder can brief the committee directly
- Default attendance — all partners, venture partners, and associates sit in on the pitch, with outside experts optional
#Pass, Hold, or Reject: Three Response Scenarios
Mashup Angels' responses generally fall into three tones. What you do next should depend on which tone your pitch received.
| Response Tone | Condition | Founder's Next Move |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate pass | Strong pain point + the right team to solve it + a market that isn't small | Lock in the pitch-meeting date — just polish your supporting materials |
| "Let's keep watching" | An appealing team, but the business-model hypothesis isn't validated yet | Build an MVP, launch, generate early metrics, then request a follow-up meeting |
| Reject | 1/N equity split, market too small, doubts about team cohesion | Redesign equity, redefine the market, strengthen the team, and reconnect in 6-12 months |
#Real Case Studies: Shiftee, Remember, and Dramaandcompany
Mashup Angels' actual investments show exactly how these weights play out in practice. The winning formula is satisfying the 50% team weight and the 25% pain-point weight at the same time.
- Shiftee (integrated workforce attendance management) — the investment decision came down to the team's fast learning ability and their refusal to assume they already understood the market, instead pounding the pavement to identify real customer needs. Within a year of launch, they'd crossed 20,000+ cumulative customer worksites, and their Pre-A round followed smoothly.
- Dramaandcompany's 'Remember' (business-card management) — a crystal-clear pain point. The fact that Mashup Angels' own team were heavy users of the product themselves became the basis for a quick seed decision.
- Selectstar (AI data crowdsourcing) — stood out at a startup competition, and the mentorship continued through to the end of the program; that accumulated trust turned into an investment.
#Self-Check Checklist
Before sending your deck to Mashup Angels, confirm you clear all seven items below. Even one 'no' raises the odds you'll fall out of that 40% first-meeting conversion rate.
- Is co-founder equity not split evenly 1/N, with a clear decision-making lead? (e.g., 60/40 or 55/30/15)
- Have you defined, in one sentence, a pain point customers will pay to solve, and backed it up with at least one of: interviews, an MVP, or payment data?
- Does at least one team member match Mashup Angels' preferred background matrix — or if not, have you substituted a strong execution track record instead?
- Have you proven with objective data that your target market is large enough not to top out around ₩5B in revenue?
- Are your funding need (within the ₩50M-300M range) and your desired closing timeline stated in your first-meeting materials?
- Is your deck a single PDF file, with bold text and underlining that make the core business model, team, and metrics immediately scannable? (No native word-processor files)
- If rejected, do you have a Plan B for which hypothesis to validate within 6-12 months before reconnecting?
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