In the late 1980s, angels started to coalesce into informal groups with the goal of sharing deal flow and due diligence work and pooling their funds to make larger investments. Because there are no public exchanges listing their securities, private companies meet angel investors in several ways, including referrals from the investors' trusted sources and other business contacts, at investor conferences and symposia, and at face-to-face meetings organized by groups of angels where companies pitch directly to investors.Īccording to the Center for Venture Research, there were 363,460 active angel investors in the US in 2021. Because innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and founders in startups, rather than existing organizations, angel investors provide (in addition to funds) feedback, advice, and contacts. These reasons include: wanting to keep abreast of current developments in a particular business arena, mentoring another generation of entrepreneurs, and making use of their experience and networks on a less than full-time basis. A similar term, " patron", is commonly used in arts.Īngel investors are often retired entrepreneurs or executives who may be interested in angel investing for reasons that go beyond pure monetary return. He began using the term "angel" to describe the investors who supported them. In 1978, William Wetzel, a then-professor at the University of New Hampshire and founder of its Center for Venture Research, completed a pioneering study on how entrepreneurs raised seed capital in the US. The application of the term "angel" originates in Broadway theater, where it was used to describe wealthy individuals who provided money for theatrical productions that would otherwise have had to shut down. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company.
Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage (when the risk of their failure is relatively high), once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity.
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