Raise Capital from Angel Investors

Raise Capital from Angel Investors.

The stereotype of an angel investor is a hardened business entrepreneur who has amassed great wealth but is always ready to earn more. Angel investors invest in early-stage or startup companies in exchange for an equity ownership interest. Angel investing in startups has been accelerating with many high-profile success stories that have spurred angel investors to make multiple bets to get outsized returns. Many angel investors may not be as wealthy as you think but are financially savvy. Most are looking for a way to grow their money by promoting innovative new businesses.

Angel investors fill a gap between the venture capitalist and the commercial lender. They don’t want to play an active role in the business but have business savvy. Venture capitalists and financial institutions lend more significant amounts, with the former willing to accept the high risk and the latter expecting minimized risk. Many angel investors invest smaller amounts of money, $20,000 instead of $200,000, but there are no limits, so $500,000 up to $ 1 million is possible.

Angel investors are also groups of people who pool their money to fund startup businesses. They include investment clubs, professional groups like doctors or lawyers, and other entrepreneurs. There is a bit of mystery surrounding angel investors because they keep a low profile, making them difficult to categorize. What you know is that they are financially savvy, thorough in their evaluation of businesses, and hopeful of earning a high return on their investments. So don’t stereotype angel investors because they can be anyone. Learn More

Important things angel investors LOOK for in a company?

• The quality, passion, and integrity of the founders.
• The market opportunity is being addressed, and the company’s potential to become very big.
• A thought-out business plan and any early evidence of obtaining traction toward the plan.
• Interesting technology or intellectual property.
• An appropriate valuation with reasonable terms.

Questions entrepreneurs should anticipate from angel investors?

• How much capital are you raising?
• How long will that capital last?
• Do you have detailed financial projections for the next two years?
• What are the key assumptions underlying your projections?
• What are the likely gross margins?

The angel investor will want to understand how the company plans to market itself, the cost of acquiring a customer, the long-term value of a customer, and management. So the entrepreneur should be prepared for the following:

• How does the company market or plan to market its products or services?
• What is the company’s PR strategy? You can find help with this question at OTC PR Group
• What is the company’s social media strategy?
• What is the projected lifetime value of a customer?
• What advertising will you be doing?
• Who are the founders and key team members?
• What relevant domain experience does the team have?
• What key additions to the team are needed in the short term?
• Why is the team uniquely capable of executing the company’s business plan?
• How many employees do you have?
• What motivates the founders? 

Raising capital can be very time-consuming, and raising angel financing will always take longer than you expect.

Not only do you have to find the right investors interested in your sector, but you also have to go through meetings, due diligence, negotiations on terms, and more. There are a variety of ways to find angel investors, including:

• AngelList
• Angel investor networks (groups that aggregate individual investors)
• Venture capitalists and investment bankers
• Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo

After finding investors, you should determine whether a prospective angel is a good fit for your company; questions you should ask: 

• How do you like to help your portfolio companies?
• What amount of follow-on investment will our company need to succeed?
• How can you be helpful to us in growing the business?
• How do you like to interact with your portfolio companies?

Angels will often invest in the company through a convertible note. The key terms negotiated are:

• Unsecured or secured, the company’s assets are almost always unsecured.
• Interest rate and payment – the interest is usually accrued and not paid currently.
• Discount rate – this is the discount rate the investors enjoy for taking the early risk in the company, expressed as a discount from the company’s Series A round of financing. A discount rate of 20 percent is typical.
• Valuation cap – this is the maximum valuation of the company where the note can be converted in the next round of financing.

There are many reasons an angel investor will reject your pitch.

The great majority of prospective investors are likely to reject you. Here are some of the typical reasons for rejection:

• The business’s market opportunity or potential size is perceived as too small.
• The founders don’t come across as knowledgeable or passionate.
• The entrepreneur, through a blind email and not a referral, made the pitch from a trusted colleague of the angel investor.
• The financial projections were not believable, and the founders couldn’t convince the investor of the reasonableness of the underlying assumptions.
• The investor wasn’t convinced of the need for your product or service.
• The investor needed to be convinced that your company was going to differentiate itself from competitors.
• Bring your team to the pitch meeting but only have the CEO speak.
• Showing me uninteresting or unrealistic projections
• Taking too long in your presentation
• Not doing a demo
• It is not being able to explain the key assumptions in your projections.
• Unable to articulate why your product or technology is differentiated from a competitor.
• I need to find out how you will use my investment capital and how long it will last.

What benefits can an entrepreneur get by taking on an angel investor?

Other than money, some or all of these benefits are obtainable from good angel investors, such as contacts with venture capitalists and strategic partners—advice and counsel along with credibility by being associated with the investor. Also, contacts to potential customers, employees, lawyers, banks, accountants, and investment bankers, the list goes on, and suffice to say, more than enough reason to make a go at it and raise needed capital.

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