AngelList's USVC offers 5% bonus shares to direct website buyers

USVC Venture Capital Access Fund will give direct website buyers bonus shares equal to 5% of their investment in its first 48-hour offer window, general partner Ankur Nagpal said Oct. 30 on LinkedIn.

The offer is in an Oct. 23 prospectus supplement, first reported by AltsWire. AngelList Asset Management, the fund's adviser, may announce periods, called offer windows, in which qualifying purchases earn bonus shares. The shares carry the same rights as ordinary shares except for transfer restrictions. They are paid from the adviser or its affiliates, not the fund. An investor can earn bonus shares on only the first $1 million invested in each window, a cap the adviser may waive, and the shares are delivered within 10 business days after the window closes.

Purchases made through a broker, a platform or any other intermediary do not qualify, and neither do purchases inside a retirement account. A client bought through an RIA's custodian or a brokerage window therefore forgoes the 5%, up to $50,000 in the first window, Nagpal said. The bonus shares also sit outside the fund's liquidity schedule: for three years from the window's closing date, an investor cannot tender, sell, transfer, pledge or otherwise dispose of them, and liquidity comes only through quarterly repurchase offers at the board's discretion.

During that three-year hold the adviser may require forfeiture or cancellation of some or all bonus shares under circumstances that include repurchases or transfers. The supplement flags a conflict of interest: the management fee is based on the fund's net assets, so the program can raise the adviser's net revenues if the added fee income outweighs the cost of the bonus shares. AngelList may modify, suspend or terminate the program at any time, and the fund said investors should not rely on bonus shares remaining available.

Nagpal said the first window will have a limited number of shares. Dates have not been announced.