ICT AND ANGEL INVESTORS
A common investing trend where the rich commit part of their portfolio in startups is called angel investing. According to the recent Reynolds survey, there are currently 756,000 angel investors in the U.S. who have made an angel investment or participated in a friends and family round of financing. Angel investments are high-risk, which is why this strategy normally doesn’t represent over 10% of the investment portfolio of any given individual. What angel investors look for is a great team with a good market that could potentially return 10 times their initial investment in a period of 5 years.
EAST COAST V/S WEST COAST
Geographically, Silicon Valley dominates the destination of angel funds, receiving 39% of the $7.5B invested in US-based companies throughout Q2 2011, 3-4 times as much as the total amount invested within New England. Total investments in 2011 were $22.5 billion, an increase of 12.1 percent over 2010 when investments totaled $20.1 billion.
The key difference between the typical East Coast angels and the typical West Coast angels is that east coast angels tend to be more downside focused in their term sheet negotiations and financing terms, while West coast ones tend to be more upside focused. That is in west coast they typically assume that in the event of a down deal they'll just lose all their money and/or deal with it as it comes up. East coast investors tend to be concerned more about the downside and attempt to include terms and conditions that might benefit them should something go wrong.
INVESTMENT SECTORS
According to the halo report, angel investors particularly like startups operating in the following industries:
· Internet (37.4%) · Healthcare (23.5%)
· Mobile & telecom (10.4%) · Energy & utilities (4.3%)
· Electronics (4.3%) · Consumer products & Svcs (3.5%)
· And other industries (16.5%).
To be considered a company following attributes is considered by angel investors