When it comes to securing an initial round of funding, entrepreneurs know that connecting with the right angel investor is a game changer. Pitching can be a challenging and rejection-filled process, making it all the more crucial to invest in building a targeted list of well-connected experts who align with a startup’s criteria.
Strategic insight from an angel investor can often indicate the difference between success and failure for a seed or pre-seed company. Early on, these connections provide more than a competitive edge—angels grant access to networks and customers as well as assist founders in pitching venture capitalists who cut bigger checks.
This blog will delve into the practical aspects of using PitchBook to connect with the right angel investors, a crucial step in launching successful ventures. By leveraging our platform, entrepreneurs can streamline their search, identify relevant investors, and increase their chances of securing funding. But before we explore this, let’s first understand who angel investors are and how they collaborate with founders.
Who are angel investors?
Angel investors are akin to a startup’s fairy godmothers. Unlike venture capitalists, these high-net-worth individuals back ideas and companies that excite them. In contrast to traditional financing, where a lender requires loan repayment, angel investors will typically receive equity or a seat on the company’s board. As a startup’s primary source of capital, these initial funds offer a favorable alternative to bank loans and a lessened financial burden.
Despite the relatively low rate of return, seed investments hold immense potential in an angel investor’s portfolio, underscoring their viability in the startup ecosystem. This should serve as a beacon of inspiration for founders, instilling hope and optimism about the possibilities of this funding route.
How do founders connect with angel investors?
While there are various routes to securing a first capital round, below are some of the most common ways founders can connect with angel investors:
- Events and conferences: founders often attend industry-specific or startup conferences and pitch nights, which are held in major cities and attract angel investors.
- Angel investment platforms and databases, such as Angelist and Gust, are designed to help startups easily connect with their target investors.
- Social media network LinkedIn is favored among investors. It offers specialized forums that can help you effectively connect with investors and understand what they are looking for.
- A warm introduction is when a friend introduces you to their entrepreneurial partner or someone in your community who knows an angel investor seeking to connect with founders.
Forging strategic connections with angel investors
Startup founders can optimize their efforts by thoroughly researching angel investors’ preferences and histories. Leveraging a data intelligence platform with filters for various investor criteria can quickly yield a concentrated list of potential fits. This step is crucial to understanding an investor’s network, track record and other angels they’ve partnered with or worked with. Periodically, a simple geography or industry search will give a founder insight into where to focus their pitching and outreach efforts.
The search outlined below offers a step-by-step walkthrough for creating a target list of angel investors using PitchBook. While our platform makes it easy to re-create and tweak this search, there are some nuances to casting a wide net and yielding the most fruitful results.
- Start by selecting our companies and deals screener. Once in the page layout, go to the Investors tab and select Angel Investors, Angel Group, Ange (Individual), Accelerator/Incubator, and then check ‘Only search primary type.’
Check Active under Investor Status, as you want only active investors who want to put their capital to work in the space. Then select investor location (United States) and search HQ only.
- Select Deal Criteria and click on ‘Only search the most recent transaction’. Under Deal Date, add your desired timeframe for completed deals in the From box.
If you’re looking for a particular check size, selecting a minimum under Post Valuation will further refine your results. For the purposes of this walkthrough, we selected 5M US. Finally, under Deal Status, select Completed. *If you’d like to see how these companies performed, you may also want to check off Pre-money valuation.
Deal types filters are especially important because they narrow your target list in the most streamlined way. Here you want to select Pre/Accelerator/Incubator, Angel, and Seed, and can also choose Round 1 in All Round Numbers to view a list of companies that have received this check. Why expand the search to include Seed? It’s more likely to find an angel who writes a seed check than a VC firm writing angel checks.
Next, you’ll click on the Industry tab to filter for the kind of company you are running. Say that you’re in the business of creating medical devices. To cast the widest possible net, you’ll want to select all keywords that apply in the Industries, Verticals & Keywords box.
- For Location, select the general region you are located in. In this example, we will select the US. Now, let’s run our search!
- Within this new page layout, Select investors and click on edit table, then edit columns. Then select primary investor type. Under investments, select total investments. This filter will add a column that allows you to see the difference between the total sum of their investments and those that match your company and market. Before exiting, click save.
Sort investments from largest to smallest to view the number of investments in each investor’s portfolio relative to those that match your keyword criteria. With this view, you can identify how many deals an investor has completed compared to those in your industry.
- Go back to the Edit Table and select Edit Columns. Check off Primary Contact, Primary Contact Email, Primary Contact Phone, and any other information based on what you are looking for. From here, you can click Download on the right side of your screen to save an Excel file of your results.
Top US angel investors by completed deals
The following bullet points provide a snapshot of the data available on an investor’s profile page. Our platform offers both high-level and detailed information on an investor’s latest deals and primary position, providing a comprehensive overview of their track record, preferences, and partnerships.
Now, let’s explore the ten top angel investors ranked by number of deals from 2021 to present based on data from our platform.
*Source: PitchBook Platform | As of June 6, 2024 | Geography: US
1. Mark Cuban
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 135
🏢 Investor HQ state: Texas
👔 Primary position: Co-founder, Axs Tv
💰 Total investments: 510
🚪 Exits: 161
Mark Cuban is an investor, film producer, and one of the principal sharks on the show Shark Tank. He is a minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks and co-owner of 2929 Entertainment. He holds a board seat in Unshrinkit and his latest investment as of Mach was in Overplay, a company operating within the entertainment software industry.
2. Elad Gil
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 125
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Co-founder and Chairman, Color
💰 Total investments: 254
🚪 Exits: 50
Elad Gil has a portfolio of over 150 companies and holds board seats at Navan and BioAge. He has invested numerous in companies in the multimedia and design space, such as LiveKit, Pika, and Ashby, within the business and productivity software industries. This June, Gil invested in LiveKit, a game engine developer designed to make videos interactive.
3. Gokul Rajaram
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 115
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Board member and member of Talent Development and Compensation Committee, Pinterest
💰 Total investments: 275
🚪 Exits: 48
Gokul Rajaram has a portfolio of 204 companies and holds board seats at several companies, including CoinTracker, Netomi, and Skolaro. Rajaram’s latest investment was this May in Patronus AI, a developer of an automated evaluation and security platform designed to help companies safely use large language models.
4. Scott Belsky
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 102
🏢 Investor HQ state: New York
👔 Primary position: Executive Vice President of Design & Emerging Products and Chief Strategy Officer, Adobe
💰 Total investments: 255
🚪 Exits: 73
Scott Belsky is an author, builder, and angel investor currently serving as Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer. In 2016, he co-founded Behance and served as its CEO until Adobe acquired the company in 2012. This April, he invested in early-stage VC company Anon, a developer of an API integration platform intended for multiplayer identity.
5. Lachy Groom
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 101
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Co-founder, Physical Intelligence
💰 Total investments:159
🚪 Exits: 14
Lachy Groom serves as a board member at Rise. Previously, he ran Stripe Issuing and led payments product and partnership teams, where he oversaw payment operations, strategic initiatives, and partnerships with Stripe’s financial partners. His previous investments include Ashby, Campus, and Nooks.
6. Balaji Srinivasan
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 100
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Angel investor
💰 Total investments: 192
🚪 Exits: 19
Dr. Balaji Srinivasan has previously served as an executive at the Stanford Bitcoin Group and as Chief Technology Officer at Coinbase. He has made numerous investments in companies within the environmental services space, such as Superpower and Rainmaker.
7. Kevin Moore
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 95
🏢 Investor HQ state: Texas
👔 Primary position: Angel investor
💰 Total investments: 396
🚪 Exits: 139
Kevin Moore has a portfolio of over 250 companies and frequently invests within the financial services and productivity software industries. His latest investment, this May, was in Berachain, a blockchain operator that aligns network incentives to create a strong synergy between the validators and the ecosystem of projects.
8. Naval Ravikant
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 87
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Co-founder and Chairman, AngelList
💰 Total investments: 357
🚪 Exits: 148
Naval Ravikant holds a board seat in Wanelo and makes numerous investments in the information services, financial software, and business productivity industries. His investments include companies such as Polymarket, Mystiko, and Perplexity.
9. Nat Friedman
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 74
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Executive, NFDG
💰 Total investments: 106
🚪 Exits: 7
Nathaniel Friedman is an investor, developer, and entrepreneur. He was GitHub’s Chief Executive Officer and the former Chairman of the GNOME Foundation. Friedman currently holds board seats at the Arc Institute and Rookout and is an advisor to Midjourney. His latest investment was in Zeta Labs, an AI assistant developer designed to automate routine web-centric tasks.
10. Dylan Field
📊 Deal count, 2021-YTD: 65
🏢 Investor HQ state: California
👔 Primary position: Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and board member, Figma
💰 Total investments: 108
🚪 Exits: 9
Dylan Field is a technology executive and Co-founder of Figma. In addition to serving as its Chief Executive Officer, he is an advisor at Roam, CodeSandbox, and PlayerZero. His latest investment was a seed round in Roam, a real estate platform intended to help homebuyers save money on their monthly mortgage payments.
Conclusion
Finding the right angel investor is challenging, but using a data intelligence platform can help founders make smarter decisions. While there’s no guarantee of success, a robust investor database can save you time and money by steering you away from unhelpful leads and giving you more control over your search.
Our powerful advanced search empowers founders to streamline their efforts so they can focus on connecting with the right angel investor who will champion every aspect of their business and help others see the value of their product.
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