Investing in Innovation: How Blast Club Is Opening Up Venture Capital

What if access to the most promising startups were no longer reserved for a handful of funds and privileged investors? Since its launch in 2022, Blast Club has sought to shake up the rules of private investing by allowing its members to access opportunities that were previously out of reach for individual investors, starting at €500 per deal. These include startups backed by Y Combinator, a global benchmark in the US technology ecosystem. Anthony Bourbon, founder of Blast Club, and Christophe Ippolito (E.12), HEC alumnus and club investor, share their perspectives on this new way of investing in innovation.

Blast Club presents itself as a departure from the traditional venture capital model. What does this mean in practical terms for individual investors?

Anthony Bourbon: For a long time, investing in the best startups was reserved for a handful of institutional investors, funds and family offices able to commit one or several million euros. Even investing through a fund generally required being able to tie up €100,000 or €200,000, without necessarily having visibility into the companies in which that money would be invested.

Our job is precisely to open up that access while providing investors with a structured framework and robust processes. Investing in a startup independently requires very specific expertise: you need to assess the company, its shareholders, its market, its risks, its financial statements and more. It is not something you can improvise.

Today, individual investors can invest alongside me on the same terms, starting at €500 per deal. We have more than 14,000 members and have deployed over €300 million in three or four years. We started with early-stage investments and now also offer pre-IPO opportunities, allowing members to build their portfolios according to their risk appetite.

Christophe Ippolito: Before joining Blast Club, like many private investors, I had access to the financial markets, a few private equity deals and direct investments in startups, particularly when opportunities arose through my network. But access to top-tier international deals remained very limited.

Even with a network like HEC’s, it was difficult for an individual investor to gain access to certain startups. And conducting the necessary due diligence yourself takes an enormous amount of time. Blast has completely changed that equation for me: I can now invest in companies I might never otherwise have had the opportunity to access.

Blast describes itself as an “investor club.” How is it different from a venture capital fund or a business angel network?

Anthony Bourbon: We are not an investment fund: we do not manage our members’ money. Instead, we present them with investment opportunities in which I systematically invest myself. This alignment of interests is a very important principle for us.

Our model also differs from that of a traditional business angel network. We have a charter that, among other things, prevents members from approaching entrepreneurs directly. The aim is to allow founders to stay focused on their businesses while benefiting from the collective strength of the community.

With 14,000 members, primarily executives and experienced professionals, this community can also provide customers, recruitment opportunities, expertise and visibility. For example, an entrepreneur can showcase a new product on our Discord server and ask members to help promote its launch. The resulting reach can be considerable.

What does access to Y Combinator mean in practical terms for a European investor?

Christophe Ippolito: Until recently, these kinds of opportunities were largely concentrated in Silicon Valley. For a European investor, you had to be there in person or have a particularly well-connected and experienced investor network.

Today, Blast Club enables members to invest in Y Combinator-backed startups in just a few clicks. Personally, I invest an average of €5,000 to €10,000 per company and per batch. This is a very tangible change: instead of watching these companies from a distance, we can actually participate in financing them.

Anthony Bourbon: Y Combinator is extremely difficult to get into. Less than 1% of the applications it receives are accepted, and its track record is exceptional, with companies such as Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox and OpenAI.

But our goal was not simply to invest on Demo Day. We managed to secure access earlier, right from the beginning of each batch. We engage with founders and can offer them financing before they even start their fundraising rounds.

We can invest very quickly across dozens of deals because we have automated a great deal of our processes. This is a decisive advantage in an environment where speed of execution matters enormously. Our investment volume has also enabled us to build a distinctive relationship with the YC ecosystem. Today, we have invested in around 300 Y Combinator startups.

Does Y Combinator ultimately help close the gap between European and American investors?

Anthony Bourbon: For European investors, yes. They can participate in the American technologies that currently drive a large share of global innovation. An individual can invest €500 where an institutional investor might invest much more, yet access the same deal at the same time—and sometimes on better terms, thanks to the volume we negotiate.

This also marks an important shift for Blast. In the beginning, we placed a lot of emphasis on the idea of investing “alongside Anthony Bourbon.” There was an emotional and community-driven dimension to it. Today, that is no longer really the point. When members invest in a Y Combinator deal, they come for the product and the opportunity. We have moved from emotion to product.

Christophe Ippolito: For me, there is also a tremendous learning opportunity. By observing the startups selected by Y Combinator, you discover emerging technology trends in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity, climate tech and robotics.

Technology is evolving so quickly that even business leaders struggle to keep up with everything that is happening. Having access to companies already working on these innovations saves time and brings you closer to what is emerging.

Beyond financial returns, what does this community bring you?

Christophe Ippolito: Returns obviously matter, but they are not what motivates me most. I am also here for the information and the community. We are in contact with the entrepreneurs who founded the companies we invest in. We can talk to them, ask questions, and share insights and opportunities with other members. Investors come from very different backgrounds and industries, and they might never otherwise have met in their day-to-day professional lives.

There can also be very tangible synergies: members meet, discover shared interests and eventually start working together. Finally, there is something genuinely stimulating about being surrounded by entrepreneurs who are trying to solve complex problems and build the world of tomorrow. That is what I particularly like about Blast: you move from being an observer of innovation to becoming a participant in it. For me, that makes a real difference.

Does this community also remind you of HEC in some ways?

Christophe Ippolito: Yes, absolutely. I had the opportunity to have lunch with Anthony and his business partner, and I found something in them that reminded me of the HEC community: a certain closeness and an easy, straightforward way of interacting. What I liked was how approachable they were. You can talk to them, share an experience or exchange ideas. I found that same sense of community at Blast, with genuine synergies between members.

In your view, what explains the quality of the deals you select and the results achieved so far?

Anthony Bourbon: First and foremost, it is our core business. We have more than 20 people dedicated to investments. We monitor the major trends of the moment, from artificial intelligence and robotics to biotech and defence.

Our other advantage is our network. In this business, without the right contacts, you cannot access the best deals. And volume itself creates access. Even if I went to the United States alone with a €100,000 investment, nobody would talk to me. But when you have deployed €300 million, people listen.

We are also able to make decisions very quickly. Our analysts specialise in specific sectors and can assess a deal, call their contacts and make a decision within two or three days. It is this combination of expertise, network and speed of execution that allows us to select and access certain opportunities.

How do you see startup investing evolving over the next five to ten years?

Anthony Bourbon: I believe startup investing will become a commodity, like ETFs, bonds or stocks today. Buying a share has become extremely simple. I think private equity and startup investing will follow the same path, becoming another component of people’s portfolios: regulated, supported by educational resources, but much more accessible.

This is all the more important because technology companies are increasingly staying private for longer before going public. If you wait until their IPO to invest, a substantial part of the value creation has already taken place. We therefore need to shift the investment window and enter the private market earlier.

Christophe Ippolito: I share this vision of investing becoming increasingly accessible, international and technology-driven. Artificial intelligence, in particular, will accelerate deal analysis and make it possible to identify certain trends more quickly. Geographical barriers should also continue to diminish. European investors will find it increasingly easy to invest in startups in the United States, Asia or Africa.

If you had to sum up Blast in a single idea for an HEC student or young alumnus, what would it be?

Anthony Bourbon: Investing in global innovation is no longer a privilege reserved for a select few: it has become a choice. What was missing was access. We have removed that barrier. Our goal is to enable individual investors to participate in financing tomorrow’s technology companies before they go public, on the same terms as the world’s leading investors, starting at €500 per deal.

Christophe Ippolito: For me, Blast is primarily about moving from being an observer to becoming an active participant. When you work in entrepreneurship and transformation, you see the world changing all the time. Being able to invest directly in the companies driving that transformation gives investors a different role: no longer simply watching innovation unfold, but helping bring it to life.

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