The Basics of Angel Investing through the eyes of a female angel investor and co-founder of Hera Fund, a female angel group funding female entrepreneurs. Angel investors look for coachability of an entrepreneur because they are writing personal checks from their personal capital, making calculated risks to diversify their portfolios. Venture funding stages and knowledge of what angels are looking for will prepare entrepreneurs for successful angel deals.

1. Basics of Angel Investing
Silvia Armitano Mah

2. What is an angel investor?
• Wealthy individuals / Accredited investors
• Invest in high risk, early stage ventures
• Reserve a portion of their total investment
portfolios to provide emerging companies
with seed and startup capital through
direct, private investments.
• They want a better return than they’d get in
a normal investment
• Typically looking for 5-25% stake

3. What Angels Want
• Scalable
• High gross margins
• Large niche market
• Unfair competitive
advantage
• Ready for customers

4. The Jockey or the horse?
Do you invest on
the horse (=idea/business)
or
the jockey (=founder/CEO)?
The Jockey

5. $
1. It’s always personal
2. Angel Sweet Spot:
$150,000 – $1.5 million
3. Go to them EARLY ... but not too early
4. Most angels are ACTIVE investors
5. Angels like to make a DIFFERENCE
Angel Investing ...

6. It’s always personal
Angels write checks out of their own accounts.
They want to connect with entrepreneurs and
their businesses, but also with people.
Founders:
Be authentic,
not some PR story you've already concocted.

7. Angel Sweet Spot: $150,000 – $1.5 million
• Up to $25,000, the choice is usually self-funding. If you don't
have that much money in, many others will be uneasy about
taking part.
• From $25,000 to $150,000, you're looking at friends and
family, offering either common stock or convertible notes.
• The angel sweet spot is between $150,000 and $1.5 million,
more often raised from a number of individuals but sometimes
from a single generous and well-off person.
• In the $1.5 million to $10 million range, you're in early-stage
venture capital in at least two phases, with half of the money up
front and the rest paid in phases. More than this, and it's a late-stage
venture fund.

8. Go to them EARLY.. But not too early
Angels want to see early stage ideas,
accept some risk, see opportunities
Founders:
• Working with angels may make sense at a
particular early stage of business growth.
• Going to them too early or too late will
minimize your chances of getting interest.

9. Venture Funding Stages
Stage 0: Friends, Family, and Fools
Seed Money (proof of concept – Angel)
Start-up (Early-stage / Product development)
First-Round / Series A (Early sales & manufacturing funds)
Second-Round / Series B (Working capital, not turning profit)
Third-round / Series B or C (Expansion, turning profit)
Fourth-round (Finance the “going public” phase)
Stage Final: IPO or sale of entire company to a bigger company

10. Most angels are AC T IVE investors
Angles contribute their time and experience
Focus on YOU!
Magnificent YOU!
Angels offer introductions to valuable contacts
essential to the company's success.
Founders: Better 20% of something HUGE than
100% of something small

11. Angels like to make a DIFFERENCE
Angels typically don't make money from their investments.
They go into deals knowing they might loose it all.
Angels are OPTIMISTIC and want to make a difference.
1/3 or sometimes 1/10 of early stage investments are hits,
meaning they return five times the investment or more.
Founders:
Be clear with angels about the risks, threats and obstacles
your company might encounter and how you plan to
mitigate them

12. What’s the state of female angel investing?

13. Business Accelerator
Join the movement of
female funders helping female founders!