There is one question that I get often from individual investors:

"Does Tundra Angels compete with other VC firms or investment groups?" 

It's a great question, and the answer often surprises people. 

For 95% of the VC firms in the Tundra Angels network with, we do not compete. We actually collaborate on deal flow, share deals that we are both seeing, and often welcome the other investors' participation in a round that is coming together. 

For 5% of the VC firms in the Tundra Angels network, there is a sense of competition when it comes to deals.

It really comes down to the mindset of the firm. Despite all this, Tundra Angels has found ways to get arbitrage.

Let me give you an example. 

Literally this past week, it was announced that a co-investor VC firm in Tundra Angels’ network, The Idea Fund of LaCrosse, closed on Samply, a startup in the MusicTech space. See screenshot of the LinkedIn post below:

But what the post didn’t say was this - I am the reason that this deal got done. 

The Idea Fund would not have known this startup existed were it not for Tundra Angels. 

I discovered Eric, Co-Founder and CEO of Samply through one of my deal flow channels back in mid/late 2025 and had several conversations with him. I liked the opportunity.

I had a quarterly catch-up call on January 8th, 2026 with Garrett Lauderdale of the Idea Fund of LaCrosse. True to investor collaborative form, I brought Samply up as a potential deal that I thought they would be interested in.

Garrett: “Samply? I don’t know that one.”

Me: “I didn’t either until I learned about it (laughs).”

Then I proceeded to elevator pitch the company to Garrett. He became super intrigued, and asked for an intro. 

I made the intro.

Some time later, I caught up with Eric again who mentioned that the Idea Fund was about to issue a term sheet to lead their funding round (a very strong signal of confidence in the opportunity).

In the end, Tundra Angels passed on the opportunity because we determined that the opportunity would have been a conflict of interest with EVEN, one of our existing Tundra Angels portfolio companies in the MusicTech space.

But this is how the world often works for 95% of VC firms in Tundra Angels’ network. What goes around, comes around.

The stature of that firm’s brand, credibility, etc. tends to the quality of deals they source, and the quality of deals they invest in.

Even though the Tundra Angels doesn’t appear anywhere on this above LinkedIn post, the fund managers know where it came from. They know who brought it. And that is what keeps the collaboration going like two magnets that need to stay close to each other.

“Tundra Angels sees good opps. We need to stay in touch with them.”

But it also happens from one VC firm to Tundra Angels. The transaction goes the other way around too. I post an announcement that Tundra Angels closed on an investment in a startup, and it may have come from an unnamed other investor in our network. In those cases, maybe it wasn’t a fit for the referring investor at the time.

Or, there are deals where our co-investor relationships welcome us in, such as WARF Ventures (UW-Madison’s investment arm), or HealthX Ventures in the digital health space, and many more.

✅ For investors, the core value proposition of Tundra Angels is the access to startup deals at such a high caliber that would be impossible to achieve independent of the trust, brand, and relationships of Tundra Angels. ✅

Venture capital, being an imperfect market, has fragmented opportunity.

Because of this, collaboration is vital in venture capital because each VC firm has a different lens on deal flow. Deal flow exists at different stratifications in the market and it is impossible to index it all. We all are intercepting different deals across our various touch points, both online and off-line. 

It's no different if this were any other asset class such as real estate. There are different avenues to go to see “on-market” deals, but then there is a underground tier of deal flow that only exists in one-to-one side bar conversations. 

For example, if you happen to invest in real estate, you may have heard statements from your peers of off-market opportunities like this:

All of these opportunities are off-market, private transactions that are only illuminated by others who are actively looking in the space. 

My equivalent of these above comments and conversations happen on the regular.

For example, at a social several weeks ago in Madison, an angel investor that I know mentioned in a sidebar conversation that he just committed to invest in a startup that had already had received offers to be acquired, twice. He said the name of the company, and I wasn’t familiar with it.

“And this is in Madison?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied.

That’s one of the reasons why members of Tundra Angels love being part of the group, the opportunity set, etc.

✅ It’s because Tundra Angels has relationships with the 95% of firms and individuals that are collaborative to get access to the deals we actually want to see.

Then, from there, to discern the deals that we actually want to get into. ✅

By the way, one of the reasons why Tundra Angels' continues to build a strong brand is that a brand at least acts as a sail of sorts to catch opportunities that we otherwise may have miss, such as an email that I got from a founder this past week:

That shows Tundra Angels is doing something right.

So 95% of the firms in Tundra Angels’ network is collaborative.

Then is a 5% of firms where for whatever reason, the investment firm acts in ways that show that they are competing. 

In my view, the common denominator tends to be that, for whatever reason, the mindset of the firm tends to be more of seeing the world in a zero-sum game.

Here is another story. 

Let's call this founder, Nora.  

Over the months, Nora and I had a number of conversations, and she'd keep me in the loop as her fundraise came together. Then, on one of those calls, she mentioned that they were in final steps of due diligence with a lead investor for the round.

For context, the lead investor is the investor who negotiates the price and terms of the round, typically writes the largest check, and anchors everyone else who comes in behind them. Who the lead is tells you a lot about a deal.

So naturally, I asked Nore who the potential lead investor was. Nora dodged the question and declined to answer, indicating that they were under strict confidentiality until the round closed. 

That was odd. Most lead investors want to be known because they want to bring other investors in on the round as well. 

I had a hunch that for whatever reason, the firm was feeling a bit possessive about their opportunities.

But I didn't push Nora. Instead, I filed it away and we kept talking.

About a month later, I was on a call with an investor at a fund in my network, let's call the investor Alex. Alex and I trade notes on deals frequently.

Due to a number of data points that I had, I had my reasons to suspect that Alex's fund was the mystery lead investor for Nora's company. 

So, I decided to test the waters. 

I brought up, "Have you spoken to Y Company (Nora’s company), what do you think about them?" 

Upon bringing up the company, Alex lit up talking about it. I just listened to the positive feedback. It didn't help that Alex doesn't have a great poker face. Alex's fund was almost certainly the lead investor. 

Interestingly, Alex did not ask me, "Are you interested in investing too?" which would be a natural question.

Two strange things had emerged.

This firm tended to be in the 95% of collaborative investors. In this particular deal, something seemed like it had shifted.

Alex didn’t invite me / Tundra Angels to invest in the round. Additionally, Nora’s comment that they were under strict confidentiality until the round closed also signaled that this fund was keeping this deal close to the vest and not shopping it around.

Truthfully, this wasn’t impressive enough of a deal that I needed to get access come hell or high water. I didn’t have full conviction on it yet.

Nora and I exchaged emails on a Saturday. Through a variety of themes, she posed me the question:

"It seems that investor cultural expectations seem to minimize contact with other potential leads once you're in deep diligence with another. Perhaps that impression comes from the previous generation. Have you noticed this changing?"

I decided to go for it. I had had it with this cloak of confidentiality that the lead investor had clearly thrust upon Nora's company. 

Is the lead investor XXX firm? I asked, directly? 

Again, she declined to answer.

I respected it, but I said that I have my ways of knowing and that it’s my job to know.

Then I replied to her question, writing:

“I think it is largely about that firm's mindset. Not gonna get on a soapbox here, but I'll just leave it and say that some investors believe that they are playing a zero-sum game, whereas others like me, believe in the power of goodwill and that we are playing an infinite game.”

Sure enough, it was later revealed pubicaly that Alex’s fund was the investor in Nora’s company. Surprise surprise. But then again, it’s our job to know.

Here is another reason why the 95% is important - because I'm of the mindset that it's far better to give than to receive.

That’s why the startup and VC market has an embedded amount of goodwill about the Tundra Angels’ brand, our process, and our mindset.

For example, a few weeks ago I met with a new co-investor relationship, somebody who runs a healthcare fund.

On that call, I surfaced three good startup deals that they were not aware of at all and offered to make intros.

That other investor surfaced one that was marginally interesting and one that had already made the rounds. It wasn’t that impressive. But then again, this is an infinite game.

Tundra Angels would rather be overindexed on the giving side of the equation than the receiving.

With a number of our portfolio companies, Tundra Angels was the only Wisconsin angel investor network / VC firm in the round - Huupe (2021 investment), Gripp (2024 investment), Upward Financial (2023 investment), Cylerity (2024 investment), Ours Privacy, etc. When I shopped these deals around to our co-investor relationships when we were going to invest, no one knew about it.

There is a power of goodwill and playing the infinite game in that if you build a brand around finding a tier of deal flow that no one else does and sharing it, that is arbitrage by itself.

If you are interested in chatting for 15 mins about that arbitrage, reply and let me know.

See you next Wednesday.

- Matthew

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