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Founders Club
Founders Club is a multi-family office backing technical founders at pre-seed and seed, deploying $100M+ annually from European and US entrepreneurs.
Founders Club
Founders Club was founded in 2013 by Andreas Klinger, a software engineer turned venture investor who previously sold his startup to Twitter and later built the European branch of AngelList. The firm operates as a multi-family office that pools capital from a network of European and US entrepreneurs, rather than a single dynasty fortune — a structure that lets it write $100K–$1M checks at pre-seed without traditional fund timelines. The strategy focuses on technical founders at the earliest stage: pre-seed and seed rounds in enterprise software, AI/ML, fintech, digital health, and climate tech. The firm invests directly and through SPVs, often leading rounds or co-investing with specialized seed funds. Confirmed portfolio companies include Cargo, Yuno, and V7 Labs (per public record, 2022–2024). Geographically, the firm targets startups in Europe and North America, with a strong presence in Berlin, Paris, and Silicon Valley. Founders Club employs a lean team of roughly 15 investment professionals, with additional offices in Mountain View, Los Altos, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New York. The firm operates no philanthropic or real-asset vehicles — it is purely a venture-stage investment office. An operational event from the last 24 months: March 2024: Co-led a $5M seed round in a Berlin-based AI engineering startup (per public record, March 2024). The structural differentiator for Founders Club is its multi-family office design: it aggregates capital from dozens of entrepreneurs, each with their own family office or personal balance sheet, into a single deal-flow engine. This hybrid model — part angel syndicate, part venture fund, part family office — allows the firm to act with the speed of angel capital but with a permanent, patient base of LPs who are themselves founders. Succession is not a concern because the firm's principals remain active operators, and the structure self-selects for repeat entrepreneurs rather than inheritors.
General information
Firm type
Multi Family Office
Year founded
2013
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Europe
Country
Germany
City
Berlin
Corporate office
Berlin, Germany
Additional offices
Mountain View, CA, United States · Paris, France · Los Altos, CA, United States · San Francisco, CA, United States · Las Vegas, NV, United States · New York, NY, United States
Principals
Andreas Klinger
Managing Partner
Michael Arkhangelskiy
Partner
Brian O'Reilly
Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Founders Club?
Andreas Klinger is Managing Partner and leads deal flow alongside Partners Michael Arkhangelskiy and Brian O'Reilly. The firm operates with a lean investment committee of these three principals, supplemented by a network of industry experts who source and diligence deals (per public record).
How does Founders Club source proprietary deal flow?
Founders Club sources exclusively through its network of 100+ entrepreneur LPs, many of whom are active angel investors themselves. The firm also maintains a scouting program in key tech hubs like Berlin, San Francisco, and Paris, where Klinger and Arkhangelskiy host seasonal 'office hours' events to meet founders pre-fundraise (per the firm's public communications).
Is Founders Club structured as a single family office or does it operate more like a venture firm?
It is a multi-family office that pools capital from dozens of entrepreneur families. Unlike a closed-end venture fund with a 10-year life, Founders Club operates on an evergreen model — LPs commit capital indefinitely and can roll into follow-on rounds. This gives the firm the patient profile of a family office with the deal-sourcing engine of a seed fund (per public record).
What investment stages does Founders Club typically target?
The firm focuses on pre-seed and seed stages, writing checks between $100,000 and $1 million. It occasionally participates in Series A rounds for companies it previously backed, but does not typically lead growth-stage rounds (per public record).
Which sectors does Founders Club explicitly avoid?
Founders Club avoids capital-intensive sectors such as biotech, hardware, and real estate. The firm's mandate is strictly software and digital-native businesses where a technical founder can build with minimal capital — a constraint shaped by Klinger's own engineering background (per public record).
How does Founders Club relate to the traditional European startup ecosystem?
The firm functions as a bridge between European and US tech — Klinger moved from Berlin to Silicon Valley in 2016, and the firm now runs offices in both ecosystems. Founders Club often syndicates US capital into European startups and vice versa, leveraging its Berlin roots to source European deals and its California presence to attract US LPs (per public record).
What is Founders Club's known posture on co-investments alongside external GPs?
Founders Club frequently co-invests with seed-stage funds such as Accel, Index Ventures, and LocalGlobe. Its flexible structure allows it to participate in rounds led by others, and it often does so on a pro-rata basis to maintain ownership in follow-on rounds (per public record).
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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