angel capital

Angel investors are an essential component of the global economy, supporting ideas and innovators at their very earliest stages. In 2014, more than 200,000 American angels invested about $24 billion in 73,000 startups, according to the Angel Capital Association (ACA). Little data, however, exists on who these investors are and how they make their decisions. ACA, Wharton Entrepreneurship and the John Huston Fund for Angel Professionalism at Rev1 Ventures are launching a nationwide survey of angel investors to learn more.

Angel group valuations and deals continued to rise through the third quarter of 2015, according to the most recent HALO Report, a publication of the Angel Resource Institute at Willamette University in Oregon. While median angel-only round sizes were $500,000 in both the first and second quarters of 2015, the third quarter saw this amount increase 45 percent to $725,000.

The last decade has seen a rapid expansion and deepening of the types of vehicles that fund startup firms in the U.S. and worldwide, according to The Globalisation of Angel Investments – a new study from Josh Lerner, Antoinette Schoar, Stanislav Sokolinksy, and Karen Wilson. In particular, the authors have seen a growing role for angel groups and other more “individualistic” funding options, such as super angels or crowd sourcing platforms.

Seed stage valuations have risen steadily over the last five years to an all-time high of 3.95 million (Median), a 30% increase over 2014, according to the recently released 2015 Q2 ARI HALO Report from the Angel Resource Institute at Willamette University (ARI). The authors found that all U.S.

Last week, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez signed House Bill 2 into law, new tax incentive legislation that, according to the governor, expands the state’s economic development toolkit. The bill received bipartisan support, in the GOP-controlled House, where it passed 60-2, and the majority-Democrat Senate, where it was approved 31-11.

In 2009, only 9.5 percent of venture-backed startups had a female founder, according to a research by CrunchBase. By 2014, that figure had almost doubled, reaching 18 percent. During that period, the absolute number of companies with a female founder quadrupled. More women are also seeking early stage funds.

In 2014, 25 percent of all angel investments supported seed and startup stage businesses, down from 45 percent in 2013, according to the year-end report by the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research. Angels, however, remain a key group in early stage financing, participating in 46 percent of all early stage deals. Angels invested $24.1 billion in 2014, down 2.6 percent from the previous year, though both the number of investors and the number of angel capital recipients had modest increases.

Acceleration in angel activity, as described in the most recent Halo Report, is a continuation of a general trend of increased valuations, deal sizes, and activity by angel groups since the start of 2011. Despite this, relatively little attention has been paid to the impacts of these angel groups on the firms in which they invest.

Many promising technologies created by Oregon startups wither on the vine due to a shortage of high-risk angel capital and many other startups leave the state in search of funding, according to a new report from the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO) – Oregon Angel Investment: The Economic Impact of High-Risk Investment in Oregon's Entrepreneurial Enterprises.

In 2014, Angel groups in the Great Lakes region invested more dollars than anywhere else in the country, 17.2 percent of the U.S. total, including angel groups in California (17 percent). This marks the first time a U.S.