Péter’s name is likely familiar since he and his co-founder successfully exited Starschema, an information technology company he founded. After this, he decided to focus on strengthening the domestic startup and innovation ecosystem, particularly by invigorating angel investments. He has been serving as HunBAN president for two years now.

Recently, Péter’s life has been about transitions: he has tried to redirect the energies he previously devoted to leading Starschema and preparing for the exit towards other areas, particularly stabilizing HunBAN’s operations. The results are evident: the previously minimal membership has dynamically increased, and they now operate with approximately 50 members. The conditions for joining have been made attractive by invigorating the “angel life.” Membership has simple, factual requirements: two existing members must recommend the applicant, the applicant must accept the ethical code, sign a membership declaration, and pay the annual membership fee. Péter emphasizes that only those should apply who can afford active and diversified investments, can take risks, and are willing to collaborate. Each investment requires a minimum of EUR 5000, and investments must be syndicated, meaning they are made jointly. This investment form involves more complex contracts, relatively high legal fees, and significant risks. Furthermore, not just diversification but the number of investments is crucial: it is a professional rule that investing in at least 10-20 or more startups increases the chances of recouping the invested capital and earning substantial profits. Péter aims to double the current membership and catch up with the region, as there are very organized and developing angel communities even further east in the Baltics, which can shape the investment environment with good examples and advocacy.

At Péter’s initiative, HunBAN has successfully created the professional associate membership position, providing a good opportunity for funds and incubators investing in early-stage startups to hunt for investment opportunities and build partnerships, in addition to private individual angels.

HunBAN’s parent organization is EBAN, the European Business Angel Network. As EBAN members, they have several sister organizations in nearby and more distant European countries, showing the way to become significant, large, and active organizations in each country. EBAN’s goal is to unify the angel activities connected to them across Europe, help organize business angels into one entity, increase their efficiency, support their access to startups and investment opportunities, and educate existing and future angels.

Over the past two years, HunBAN has continuously organized events and built a highly effective event structure. Bi-monthly meetups, a knowledge-sharing event form, were established, along with bi-monthly pitch events exclusively for members and prospective members, where startups seeking capital can apply and, if selected and prepared, pitch. The best ones naturally receive investment offers from angel investors. Péter considers it a significant achievement that recently there have been 30-40 applications for these events.

At the beginning of the event, they listen to short pitches by selected teams, followed by a five-minute Q&A, and at the end of the professional part, traditional pizza and beer networking allows investors to get to know the teams they find interesting better. After the event, HunBAN sends a follow-up email to its members to map out interest directions, and based on the responses, they proactively start organizing syndicates.

At last year’s annual international Angel Fest, more than 200 attendees participated, including international speakers like Petra Wolkenstein from Startup Wise Guys, Paul G. Putz from Danube Angels, and Jacopo Losso from EBAN. The event was held on two tracks: one was a knowledge-sharing, roundtable section with their speakers, and the other was a small stage set up for startup pitches.

And why is angel capital and compatible crowd and VC structures and investments needed?

There is a massive amount of dormant capital, wealth accumulated outside the banking system, in the economy that does not become working capital. According to MNB statistics, there is 7500 billion forints of non-working, dormant capital in Hungarian households, which can become working capital through angel investments, as well as through crowdfunding. It should be an absolute goal of any economic policy that the more channels through which businesses can access capital, the greater the growth potential of an economy. Where there is no venture capital investment, there is no innovation either.

According to HunBAN’s bylaws, a person can be elected president twice, so Péter can only hold this position for the next two years. He has short-term plans for this period, including growing the Angel Fest, bringing an international conference to Hungary, and increasing membership. He considers it particularly important to bring in individuals from all parts of the spectrum for membership growth. On the other hand, he would like those already active in the startup world or exit company leaders, who have achieved something with their company and inevitably accumulated a lot of knowledge, to invest part of their capital and add this knowledge to become very effective, very good startup investors. These investors should appear in large numbers at HunBAN.

The Hungarian investment culture needs to develop significantly, and this can be influenced by a TV show like Shark Tank, but also by banks, the government, and the media. Good education is necessary, with good knowledge material for young people, a sufficiently permissive regulatory environment, where there are already steps being taken, and capital abundance, which still needs much improvement. If these conditions are met, or at least partially realized, and angel investments can become lively just on the international stage, then in the next 5-10 years, the domestic startup world and the angel small investor world can finally achieve very successful development.