I'm sure it varies wildly depending on context, but in general I can imagine investing in long distance trade between Europe and the eastern indies in the 17th Century would have been extremely costly and risky, since it took a lot of time to travel around Africa and the possibility of a shipwreck was very real.
So, as a very general ballpark, how much would an investor expect to gain from such an investment to make it worth the risk? Would it be 120% of the gold they spent? 200%? 1000%? Does it even make sense to pose the question in these terms, or were their economic systems too different to compare?