By connecting institutions with the earliest-stage startups, AngelList is upending the system.
One recent evening a group of institutional money managers was ushered into a backroom at San Francisco brasserie the Cavalier via an unmarked secret entrance that most customers would mistake for an emergency fire exit. Their host was Naval Ravikant, a wildly successful angel investor—Uber, Twitter, etc.—and serial entrepreneur who wanted to pitch them on his latest venture. Not by asking them to invest in it, but by asking them to invest through it. If enough of the money managers take him up on the offer, it could usher in an era of radical disruption in the world of angel investing.
Image: AngelList CEO Naval Ravikant, on a terrace at his company's New York office, has created a platform that could challenge the established VC powers of Sand Hill Road. Photo by Rebecca Greenfield for Fortune
