Masterclass: Honest Lessons from 18 Years as Business Angel with Nicolai Højer Nielsen

​Masterclass: A Conversation with Nicolaj Højer Nielsen, European Business Angel You’ve made money and you know business. So how hard can startup investing be? And why do so many smart, successful people lose money doing it? Few people can answer that more honestly than Nicolaj Højer Nielsen. He has been a business angel since 2008 and has backed 73 startups. His first fund returned 5.7x to investors, and his personal annualized return is above 30%. Unlike most investors, he publishes every number, including the 20 companies that didn’t make it. His new book, The Burden of Being Right: Confessions of a European Angel Investor, is blunt and often very funny. It covers which founders to back, which co-investors to trust, when to sell, and when to sit tight and wait. Join us for a moderated session with Nicolaj, followed by live audience Q&A. Exclusive for CVX partners: 20% off the book with code CVX20, pre-order price valid until 15 November. After that, 20% on full price. Order the book here: https://theburdenbook.com What we’ll explore • Why private markets are stacked against individual investors, and what the power law means for how you build a portfolio • How to find the exceptional founders the market misprices, and avoid the ones it happily funds • Herd behaviour among angels and VCs: how to read co-investor signals without following them off a cliff • How to survive the decade-long wait for exits without running out of money, nerve or patience • Your questions, in a live audience Q&A About Nicolaj Højer Nielsen Nicolaj Højer Nielsen is a serial entrepreneur and one of the Nordics’ most experienced business angels. He co-founded the tech companies Penneo and Sepior and taught entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School for fifteen years. Since 2008 he has invested in 73 startups, and he has built a track record he documents down to the last loss. The Burden of Being Right is around 300 pages and draws on more than forty named, mostly Nordic, companies. It ships at the end of November. Nicolaj lives in Andorra.