The investors getting 49% of the business for €600k implies a pre money valuation ("what your idea plus you is worth") of a little over €600k; the post money value is a little over €1.2M (pre money + cash).
I'm going to guess that the reason you are thinking of spending this amount of anyone's money suggests you believe you're going to create far more value.
If this is being sold as high risk, then investors will want an expectation of high returns. If €600k is sufficient to get you to a next investment round or exit in 5 years, a valuation of €10M at that point gives just under €5M to the investors, an annual return of 48%. And that may well be the kind of target you should be looking for. And an investor is going to want to see how this is going to be achieved, before parting with their €60k.
So an important question is, who is the real investor here? It could be those 6-12 'chunk' investors. Or it could be the investment firm - if in essence it's selling those investors its own management skills. What is the valuation being sold to the investors, and how is it justified? And if the real investor is the intermediary, what is their view of value, how have they derived it, and how can you compare with other views, benchmarks and methodologies?
Now, here's where things can get complicated. Because you haven't exchanged 49% of the business for €600k of cash put into the business account, you've exchanged 54% for that figure. You and your partner do not have a controlling share - in all probability the controlling share is controlled (and partly owned) by the investment firm.
I can't imagine being comfortable with that situation. Not in general, but because we're so close to the margin. 51% for the co-founders is very, very different from 46%.
If the figures are generally in line, if it were me I'd rather pay the investment firm 10% out of the funds raised - €60k, pretty much the book value of that 5% they're planning to keep. Or they can take that in shares - from the 49%, not in addition to it. That leaves €540k cash available to develop the business - and a task for you to make that enough, by judicious use of funds. (Simple business plans tend to understate costs, but also most competent financial managers can squeeze or phase costs to your advantage.)
Then I'd want to write an agreement with my partner that gave each of us first right to buy any or all of the other's shares at an appropriate value in the event they wanted to sell, plus arrangements for withdrawal from the business, death and so on. In other words, I'd want to prevent a situation where control passes from the pair of us acting jointly - or room for a third party to start playing us off against each other.
That way, I'd be happy we have what we want - cash to make our business happen, retaining control and accountability within the founding team.
But what if the figures aren't right? I'd want to get a better view of what's actually reasonable here.
Of course, I hope that all this understates the value - in which case, I'd want that €600k in exchange for less equity released. Ideally, I'd like to be holding enough equity so that we could go another round and still keep a controlling share. Again, you need to get a proper view on valuation to know if you could be in this territory.
It's also possible that we're overstating the value, or underplaying the risk. In this case, my personal rule of thumb is that below €5M input I want to keep control, above that level there are lots of situations where I'm going to be happy to end up with a small stake.
So for me, if this latter case were my view, I'd be looking for sensible ways to break the investment into discrete stages - maybe €250k can get me to some meaningful milestones.
In this case,
a. If we're successful, we'll let less equity go in this high risk round, the next investment round should be lower risk, so the money will cost less. And I'm still in the same ballpark, so in the success case the investment managers can help me next round and avoid the distraction and uncertainty of the fund-raising process.
b. If it doesn't turn out as we expect, we've either failed more cheaply, or what we've learned lets us construct a more meaningful plan - we'll know the true costs, timescales and risks far better.
This kind of approach can also be built into a single round. Instead of offering a single high risk investment, the cash could be delivered to the business in two rounds, the second contingent on certain agreed and objective measures and targets. If there's a meaningful way to do this, the risk being offered is high on the first cash call, medium on the next - so the blended risk is lower, and by implication the returns needed are less. I like arrangements of this sort when (and only when) there's a genuine and natural way of creating those meaningful measures and targets. But it's important to have defined what happens by default if they aren't met.
To summarise: retaining control, and executing sensible agreements between the two of you as co-founders, create protection from your concerns. And you really need to get another view of valuation to know whether the numbers behind this proposed deal make sense.
