Angel Investing: Innovation Within The Establishment

This is an “industry note” introducing Angel Investing as a concept and discussing recent developments in the industry. Angel Investing has been a long standing practice, dating back to Broadway play financiers at the turn of the 20th century, and including wealthy benefactors of burgeoning business, like Laurance Rockefeller in the 1930s. Angel Investing experienced high profile success in the 1980s, and memorably in the dot.com economy of the late 1990s. After the dot.com fall out in 1999-2000, Angel Investing took hard punches and many angels retreated from active investing. The next generation of angels had different expectations, different experiences, and different practices – this note focuses on the “new generation” of angel investors and the steps taken on both sides of the investing equation to mitigate the risks inherent in the relationship.