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Comment by crowdstorm | Hacker News Reader

I can tell you for a fact that mentors were not allowed in that final day of presentation - only vc's and angels who had paid a large amount (50k+) into the "seedcamp fund" - whatever that meant. What you have is a project that is pitching as being a transparent ecosystem to help startups - when in fact it's just an investment vehicle milking the goodwill of advisors and mentors to serve the aims of those funds.

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Saul says mentors are allowed in:

http://blog.seedcamp.com/2009/09/awaiting-moderation.html

Is it possible that Reshma said what she did as a quick shorthand for letting people in? If she knew all the mentors from 2009 (which I understand wasn't you this year), the only other people allowed in were investors.

In other words, she didn't recognize you as a mentor, so asked if you were an investor (the only other group allowed in). And for people she didn't recognize, she provided a sensible shorthand answer for why they couldn't attend. If you're trying to keep the trains run on time, you don't necessarily have the opportunity for a more complete Q&A.

I don't really have a stake in this argument, but just really like what Saul and Reshma have done with Seedcamp.

To put 50K into ANY fund is not a large amount, that's the little league (from an investors point of view).

From a startup point of view it is reasonably serious but for a single investor 50K is small, very small.

If a fund had an entry ticket that low I would definitely look elsewhere, I would be very worried about small time investors coming on board with very little experience and a risk profile that does not belong in the venture capital world, especially not the seed world.

The whole point is that there are a number of solid VCs with small stakes involved.

If it was operated by large investments by a small number of VC's, the model could provide problematic signals. Specifically, if those VC's get early and in-depth looks at these companies and choose NOT to invest, it would be a negative signal to other investors. By spreading this across a large number of VC's, this potential is diluted.

The investors in Seedcamp are well known and respected investors... they're not "small time" with "very little experience". And many of them are long-time seed investors.

A 'well known', 'experienced' and 'respected' investor would never force their presence in a company onto a company that did not want them.

Hey I care less about whether mentors were allowed. I care more about what expectations mentors had from Seedcamp. Were their specifics you guys were promised? If not, why such drama?

The Seedcamp fund is obviously where the money for the EUR 50k investments comes from. It seems logical to me that the people contributing the money are the audience of the final pitching round, upon which they then decide who to fund.

There are multiple other pitches (at the start of Seedcamp week, at investor day in December, etc) that are meant for a more public audience.

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