Frequently Asked Questions

Not at all. SSV is opt-in, deal by deal. There's no committed capital, no membership fee, and no penalty for passing. You get to look at each opportunity on its own merits and decide whether you're in. Some of our investors do nearly every deal; others do one a year; others have only ever done a single deal and have been on the list for multiple years. All of those are fine. You're never on the hook for a deal you didn't actively choose to join.

Yes. You should assume going in that any single deal can go to zero. This is early-stage investing; failure is the base rate, not the exception. The model only works if you treat it like a portfolio: invest across multiple deals over time, and never put in money you'll need for anything else in the next decade. Don't invest the mortgage payment, the tuition bill, or the emergency fund. The upside on the winners can be substantial, but it comes precisely because the risk is real. If a total loss on a given check would genuinely hurt you, that check is too big.

We look at far more than we bring you, and we only send opportunities we believe in enough to put our own money into. In 2025 we looked at over 500 deals and we invested in 10. We're never showing you a deal SSV partners haven't invested alongside you. The current investment committee is made up of the partners on this page. That said, our diligence is not a guarantee. The very best startup investors expect most of their investments to fail.

Roughly: we send out the opportunity with the key terms, the minimum, and a deadline to commit. If you're in, you let us know your check size and we get you the subscription documents and the SPV operating agreement to sign electronically. Once commitments are in and the docs are signed, we'll send ACH/wire instructions and you fund your full commitment to the SPV. The SPV then makes the investment into the company. From there you're a member of that LLC, and we represent it on your behalf.

Early-stage investing is patient capital. A successful angel/seed investment typically takes somewhere in the 7 to 10 year range to reach a meaningful exit, and plenty take longer. A few return capital sooner through dividends or an early buyout; many return nothing at all. We built our fee structure around a 5-year window because that's a reasonable floor, but plenty of our SPVs will run longer than that. Go into every SSV investment assuming your money is tied up for 5–15 years, and treat anything faster as a happy surprise. We rarely control the timing once we invest. We're along for the ride right alongside you.

Our typical minimum is $5,000, though it can vary by deal depending on the round size and the minimum the company or lead investor sets. We'll always state the minimum for a given opportunity when we send it out.

Almost none of the investments we offer through SSV should be considered liquid assets. These are not publicly traded companies, and these investments have no to seriously limited marketability. You should not make an SSV investment unless you are comfortable with that money being tied up and unavailable for five to fifteen years. This is the nature of early-stage investing. That said, here are the scenarios when you can or will get your money back:

• The company does distributions to equity (dividends). In this scenario, you get money back slowly over time. The other exit options below would all still be in play.
• The company has an exit / liquidity event and there's a return to investors. This could happen all at once, or over an earnout period. In some cases an exit could also include debt financing of some sort, or other company stock. So there may be multiple milestones over time for payment/returns.
• The company agrees to do a share buyback / redemption of some sort (either partial or total) before a liquidity event occurs.
• An investor in a later-stage round (Series A or B, for example) offers to buy out earlier angel investors at some sort of agreed-upon premium.
• We (SSV) agree to engineer a private sale inside of our SPV between a party that wants to sell and a party that wants to buy at a pre-agreed-upon price. We have not done this yet, and hope we will never have to.

No. You fund your full commitment up front when the SPV closes, and we won't come back later demanding more for that same deal. If a company does a later round and we decide to participate, that's a brand-new, separate opportunity you can opt into or pass on.

It depends on the deal. We run three structures (1/10, 0/10, 0/0), explained below. Our default is 1/10: a 1% annual management/expense fee on your invested capital, assessed up front for the first five years (so 5% of your total investment), plus a 10% carry on profits. Not every deal carries fees. See the VCI and fee-structure notes below.

A typical fund charges 2/20 (2% fees on capital invested, and 20% of any returns the investment earns). At SSV, we charge no membership fees, and we only charge a 1/10. The 1% fees are calculated as 1% of the amount you invested for a maximum of 5 years (5% total). If you invest $10k, we assess an additional $500 for management/expense fees to cover tax, legal, and software costs. If the SPV lasts more than five years and runs out of fee capital, the SSV team covers those costs. The 10% carried interest is only on actual returns after your return of capital. For example, a $10k investment that returns $100k results in returning your original $10k, leaving $90k. Our 10% carry is $9k, and you receive $91k. If there are no returns, we only ever collected the 5 years' worth of fees. We offer three different fee structures:

• 1/10 — 1% fees (for five years), 10% carry. This is our default.
• 0/10 — 0% fees, 10% carry. No VCI passthrough.
• 0/0 — 0% fees, 0% carry. We use this if we founded/operate the company.

VCI approval refers to companies that are eligible for the Indiana Venture Capital Investment Tax Credit. If a company is approved, we sell the transferrable tax credits in the market and receive cash to cover expenses related to running that investment (tax, legal, software, etc.). What this means for you as an investor is that you are not charged up-front fees from SSV (you will still have the 10% carry), but you won't personally get the passthrough of those VCI credits.

Often, yes. Investing through a self-directed IRA, a family trust, or an LLC is very common. However, the entity must be set up to make private investments, and for a self-directed IRA you'll need a custodian that allows it. If you go this route, the entity is the member of the SPV, and the K-1 is issued to that entity. Check with your custodian, CPA, or legal counsel before you commit.

These are two separate dynamics. Dilution occurs when a company raises a later round, reducing everyone's ownership percentage. This is normal, since you own a smaller slice of a more valuable company. Follow-on opportunities arise if SSV chooses to invest in a later round; we will typically offer existing investors the chance to participate through the same SPV, but you're never required to. If we don't follow on, or you choose not to, you simply ride along at your diluted ownership.

SPV stands for Special Purpose Vehicle. We set up a new LLC for each investment by SSV. You invest in the new LLC operated by SSV, and that LLC invests in the target company. We do this so the company doesn't get dozens of individual investors on their cap table, to allow investors to remain anonymous, and to pool our investments to clear investment minimums in the round. Want to dig deeper on SPVs? A good resource is this overview.

In almost all cases, yes. The deals we run through SSV are private securities, and the exemptions we rely on (SEC Rule 506(b)) require investors to be accredited. The most common ways to qualify as an individual (check here for the latest) include an income over $200k ($300k jointly) in each of the last two years, a net worth over $1M excluding your primary residence, or certain professional licenses (Series 7, 65, 82). When you join any new deal, we will ask you to confirm your accreditation status to keep the offering compliant.

Your interest is a membership interest in the SPV LLC, and like most private interests it generally can't be freely sold or transferred. Transfers typically require SSV's consent and are governed by our operating agreement. In the event of your death, your interest passes to your estate and is handled according to your estate plan, with the SPV documents controlling the mechanics.

Not necessarily. We only send K-1s in years when the SPV actually has activity to report. If the SPV holds equity in a C-corp, you generally won't see a K-1 until there's a distribution, a dividend, or a liquidity event. Partnership K-1s often run late, sometimes past April 15, because we're waiting on information from the underlying companies. Plan on filing a tax extension in years you receive K-1s. This is not tax advice. Consult with your CPA or legal counsel before making a startup investment.

We send updates to you when we receive them from the underlying company we invested in. If they send us updates monthly, you get them monthly. If they send them once a year, you'll get them once a year. We do not set a minimum communication requirement when we invest. However, the standard practice for the industry is quarterly updates. Between updates, you're always welcome to reach out with questions on any deal you're in, and we will help run down the answers.