Hello. I am following up on a prior post here with an update. I invested in IMGA in June. My lawyer opened my and my wifeās applications with SEF in mid-June, with partial documents. My lawyer completed our applications with remaining documents about the first week of July. We were pre-approved on August 9 and August 11. Based on that, IMGA appears to be confirmed as an approved investment. I monitor my IMGA daily NAV frequently (pretty much daily) through the independent financial website investing.com, which makes the current value of my investment transparent, which I find superior to the uncertainty of a closed fund.
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Gavin, I found my conversation with you very helpful in understanding the Portugal VC fund scene and I thank you for that. Thanks also for sharing the Armilar partner article - it is really very informative as well.
However, I think as the fund manager for the Portugal Gateway fund (as a Kigeni general partner), I think it is important to clearly state your affiliation in this forum especially if you accessing and editing the sheet that has all the other fund information in the sheet.
Just think it would be better for all the information in that sheet be handled ideally be people that do not have a dog in the fight 
(especially when editing other funds information).
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Thanks Jim, those are good points. However, you will see that I have been totally transparent - my profile states my role, I have mentioned it before on this forum, and I have presented a webinar to this forum where I clearly and upfront stated my role (you can view a recording of that on this forum).
Further, I am only one of several with edit access. So I didnāt edit the original two worksheets that you can still view, I combined them into a third worksheet, grouped them by category/strategy to make it more transparent for users and added items specifically requested by forum members in public posts. The original worksheets are still in the workbook. The only fund that I added/edited off my own bat without a clear and public request is Shilling, who are pretty much our only direct competitor, and if you feel I have been in any way unfair to Shilling please let me know how to change this.
Finally, I requested, on this forum, that my worksheet be approved and checked before being posted. And it has been edited subsequently by other people with edit access rights.
Can I ask you to please do the same? Please review carefully, let me know any changes you want, and I (or any of the other people, there are after all a number of us) who have access to the worksheet will make the changes. Could you please do that as a matter of urgency - I really donāt want any suggestion that this very valuable workbook is in any way tainted to detract from the great work done by all other contributors.My only caveat is that I donāt feel I have the right to change any edits made by another person, only those I have made.
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Many thanks for the information. Would you mind sharing which lawyer you are using? Many seem unfamiliar with this route.
Thanks for the update.
Would you mind sharing which lawyer you are using? As I mentioned in a previous post, most lawyers seem unfamiliar with this route and Iād prefer to use someone that has experience with it.
@gavin4 I donāt know how well those databases really capture the better share of the funds out there. They cover the startup space so cover the Kigeni/PV/BlueCrow/Oxy/Indico side of things, but they arenāt going to cover any of the RE-focused stuff (however you might feel about their validity as FCR - and I canāt say I disagree - they do exist and are valid for GV and thereforeā¦) which does make for a fairly big hole in terms of finding any sort of third-party validation for any of these funds, and I think there are more of them than there are true VC (dunno).
@mgala there is no one company meeting your description. Itās a mixed bag. And probably not the question youāre really asking. What Iām guessing youāre asking for is the same thing so many others are looking for, some fund manager that has cranked out first-world returns for 20 years with minimal risk, in other words an easy ālow-risk/decent-returnā investment - which Iāve explained a couple times now canāt possibly reasonably exist in a country like Portugal. If thatās not what youāre asking, I apologize.
Top of my head, speaking in terms of managers with GV funds open, Explorer, BlueCrow, and Oxy have been around a while in Portugal terms and are probably reputable (some might dispute BC but I count their history in WM). I think Indico too. They have some funds that have done ok and some that have sucked - a manager can be reliable and transparent in how they go about losing your money. I canāt speak to anyone on the RE side since I more or less tossed them out of hand. Since Iāve stopped looking for investments, these kinds of things are starting to slip out of my head.
I think we all should carefully look into the real problem described here:
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Putting pressure on SEF is probably pointless. Theyāre going to do whatever theyāre going to do. What do they care? Theyāre civil servants, they get paid the same. Itās politicians you have to put the pressure on, e.g. āif people stop signing up for GV because of bad marketing then SEF killed the golden goose so you need to fix thatā - but clearly the politicians are already in hot water WRT SEF anyway so you can say that probably isnāt going to do any good either.
Hello
Do we have comparison with Open Funds such as BPI Portugal?
I feel open funds is more transparent and comforting than private funds.
Please share your thought.
Thank you
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Tks. So should i presume that there is no risk of IMGA Acoes Portugal not being qualified for GV by SEF?
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numerous folks have used this investment at this point and have been approved (according to bankers). Just submitted my application with this investment so will let you know!
Have you made comparison with private funds?
What is your biggest doubt before made decision using Open Funds ?
I feel private funds are more commercial ( more people selling to just earn commissions)
Thank you
This is a very helpful post because it has specifics. I would add that apparently there are exit fees as well of 15 bps for BIG and 25 bps for Bison.
Hello
question for the people who bought IMGA accoes portugal in Millenium BCP bank-
did you buy the fund just in the online banking Category A fund units?
It is said the market is euronext100 so I donāt understand is this correct way to buy fund units for GV application?
Thank you
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Hi @ahubsch, did you purchase IMGA through Bison Bank? Please share your lawyer contact info. Just had meeting represented at both IMGA and Bison. By far, this is the most practical investment approach. It is much more transparent than any closed equity fund. It is the most liquid investment that you can pull out of. And it has the less fees of any investment. What has been your experience? Thanks
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Hi Kevin & Divyesh,
I have been looking at Pela Terra too & think its interesting - uncorrelated & (5% + 14%) isnt bad in Euros, esp given the market cycle (7 years is a long time )ā¦ Is the return net of fees though ?
Have you spoken to the Manager ?
I did yesterday. No reply yet.
But I also like the idea
Also the Google sheet states that min investment is 100k
Their website says 350k, so no way to make 2 investments and have some diversification ā¦
@Alex_LW Can you please clarify it? Thank you!
Also I think CMVM review (a bit outdated thou) might be interesting in this topic
www.cmvm.pt/en/EstatisticasEstudosEPublicacoes/Publicacoes/CapitaldeRisco/Documents/CMVM-Relat%C3%B3rio%20Anual%20de%20Capital%20de%20Risco-2019-27.01.21.pdf
At last I made my decision for the funds. I chose Next Capital and Rock Capital funds and started investment process.
Thanks to all who contributed here. It was very helpful.
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