Economist's journey to Brazilian real estate and back to European tech - Thomas Desimpel

Like Bruce Buffer likes to say before the UFC Main Event - "Its TIIIIIIIIIME" , as today, we're putting the spotlight on Fund Fellow Founders (fff.vc) community member Thomas Desimpel. He is a Managing Partner of 4D Ventures and quite active angel-investor with really diverse experience. He has founded a real estate investment company in Brazil and is now focusing on tech, having moved back to Europe some time ago.

A little his about your background

Thomas, a Belgian economist, sought a professional challenge early in his career and made the decision to move to Brazil despite his lack of language skills and local network. He established a real estate investment company that focused primarily on social housing-related and/or real estate allotment projects, investing his own funds and partnering with others. 

Thomas's first projects were unsuccessful due to inadequate due diligence, lack of experience, and insufficient language skills. However, after about five years, he sold a large, fully licensed project to a local listed real estate player, which allowed him to completely re-organize his business by buying out a local business partner and gradually relocating his business from Rio to São Paulo.

Although the experience was painful, it provided Thomas with invaluable lessons that shaped his thoughts and personality. He attributes this experience to planting the seeds for the experienced investor he is today. After returning to Belgium with his family, Thomas started angel investing, which began as a hobby but later became a new profession. He launched 4D Ventures at the end of the previous year. 

How long has Thomas been investing, and why did he become an investor in the fist place?

Thomas has been angel investing for almost seven years. By the end of 2022, he had professionalized as an emerging solo GP with the launch of 4D Venture Partners, backed by three silent partners.

Thomas enjoys angel investing because it allows him to meet a diverse range of founders and new business ideas, which opens his world. He has always worked internationally, and he finds that this profession really suits him.

He began his angel investing journey by investing in his first crowd-funding tickets and gradually moving towards formal and informal business angel groups, building close networks of trust and peer groups. He found that his quality of dealflow increased over time, and he enjoyed the learning curve that came with building his professional network.

Thomas strongly believes that every investor must develop their own investment thesis that matches their personality and risk profile. He gradually focused on B2B SaaS investments and eventually sharpened his vision further with B2B SaaS with a unique and clear vision, which became 4D's primary investment filter.

Over that seven-year period, Thomas had one portfolio returner, myskillcamp, a Belgian B2B SaaS online learning platform, that exceeded 10 times his initial investment, and a second smaller exit through two secondary transactions and one company, Cambri in Helsinki, that quickly passed series A. This success was encouraging for Thomas. With the profits from Myskillcamp, he decided to reinvest a substantial part in an animation company called Fourth Wall. Initially, he wanted to invest alone due to the high risk, but spontaneous syndication grew anyway. Before he knew it, Nicolas D., one of the actual business partners of 4D Venture Partners, and he were leading half of the round of a business that was entirely new to them. But the founders of Fourth Wall had a clear and unique vision that drew Thomas in.

..long story short, after that episode, his first backers asked for “more of the same”, and so with the remaining funds of that portfolio returner and backed by the capital of his three (silent) business partners, 4D Ventures partners was born end of 2022.

Why did Thomas join Fund Fellow Founders (fff.vc)?

Thomas was studying a company called Planet42 (he really admires the founders as they also have a clear and unique vision), and someone in his network introduced Thomas to Akim of fff.vc, who was also in due diligence of the same company. The culture of fff.vc immediately sold Thomas: full transparency and members helping other members.

What are the challenges Thomas faces as an investor?

Obviously, the founders will always know better about their startup than any investor as an outsider. There is an information asymmetry. This can be mitigated by more extended periods of observation (‘invest in lines, not in dots’) and doing needed homework (aka as due diligence), but in a ‘hot’/competitive market -like they had last year, that was not always possible.

Why should other investors join fff.vc?

The information gap, as explained above, will diminish considerably as more people look at it (although be careful with ‘group think’) through all possible angles.

fff.vc’s deal flow is also well “vetted”. This, combined with a culture of transparency and the due diligence of the presented investment opportunities, is quite unique. 

Also, some unique investment opportunities like “secondary shares” are presented through the network. 

Akim and Tim Vaino & co really do a great job, and I am very happy to be on board.