What's an Angel Investor?

If you're a cash-strapped entrepreneur looking for an infusion of capital, you may be curious about angel investors. Very few start-ups will receive an investment from an angel—in 2007, fewer than sixty thousand companies received angel funding, a relatively small figure considering more than ten times that many businesses are started each year. But for the right small business, this type of capital can fill the gap between that money you've gotten from friends and family and the venture capital that you hope to secure down the road.

So who is an angel exactly? An angel is a wealthy individual willing to invest in a company at its earlier stages in exchange for an ownership stake, often in the form of preferred stock or convertible debt. Angels are considered one of the oldest sources of capital for start-up entrepreneurs; the term itself, by most accounts, comes from the affluent patrons who used to finance Broadway plays in the early twentieth century. In 2007, angels invested $26 billion in 57,120 ventures, which breaks down to about $450,000 a deal, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. That makes angels a potentially powerful resource for newbie entrepreneurs with promising young companies.

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Author: COLLEEN DEBAISE