Why Tundra Angels Invested in EVEN

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Today, I’m kicking off a series of “Why Tundra Angels invested in _______,” for the most recent investment, EVEN, and the ones that Tundra Angels make in the future. This post is about our 19th investment, EVEN.

This is the story how Tundra Angels invested in EVEN.

✅ An investor’s poor assumptions is the #1 factor that can kill an startup opportunity before it’s even begun. ✅

Unfortunately, many investors leave assumptions about particular startups completely unchecked, causing them to mis-categorize startup opportunities.

Venture capital investors need to be keenly aware of those assumptions are for each startup, and be curious enough to prove or disprove those assumptions. 

With EVEN, I held two pre-existing assumptions that nearly tricked me into missing Tundra Angels’ 19th investment.

The Assumptions that I Brought In

Here are the two assumptions that I brought into my first conversation with Founder and CEO of EVEN, Mag Rodriguez.

Assumption 1

Years ago, I had heard about EVEN after their pre-seed round was announced in April 2023 in this article. Do you know what I thought?

“The world doesn’t need another Spotify.”

I thought EVEN was in the same category as Spotify, Apple Music, etc. I carried this assumption for two years because, before my reach out to Mag, I was never confronted with a context to learn about EVEN.

Assumption 2

In my typical deal flow, music technology is not one of the major categories that I typically see. Yet, there was one music tech play that pre-dated Tundra Angels that I was familiar with - it was a platform called LUM that was based in Madison, Wisconsin. I had been connected on LinkedIn to the Founder and CEO for a number of years and I didn’t fully understand all of the intricacies of the platform. But after raising several million in VC and bringing on Ne-Yo as their brand ambassador, LUM shut its doors, covered in this article. It was totally unexpected to me and to those following their journey.

LUM, once a darling of Wisconsin startup scene, now ceased to exist - but I didn’t know why. That was an open and unresolved question to me.

My main question of, “Why did LUM fail?” nagged on me since LUM shut it’s doors and I wasn’t in the music space enough to know the answer.

Encountering EVEN

Through one of our investor deal flow channels, I saw that EVEN was raising funds.

Keep in mind, from the two assumptions above, I saw EVEN and seeing the company name, I consciously ran through the two assumptions that I had - “This is probably just another Spotify competitor,” and also, “The music tech space is so hard, just look and how LUM wasn’t successful.”

But despite those assumptions, I still decided to reach out, just in case my assumptions were incorrect. Better to give ourselves the opportunity to invest rather than to decline the opportunity without true knowledge of what it entails.

I’m so glad I did. I reached via a cold email to the Founder and CEO, Mag Rodriguez.

Mag responded.

Primary Reasons Why Tundra Angels Invested in EVEN

Non-Obvious Insight: Artists Actually Don’t Need a Global Following to Make a Livable Wage