Hopes and Dreams Being an Angel is like being a grandparent. You get all the joys of being a parent/entrepreneur but you don’t have the stress of changing diapers, paying for university, firing employees or meeting payroll.
Aside from personal reasons for investing, we know, for example, that the median US Angel is 57 years old and has 14.5 years of entrepreneurial experience founding 2.7 ventures. He (86% are male) invests no more than 10% of his net worth and has made 10 investments over nine years with two exits or closures. 99% have college degrees and over half have graduate degrees. (Wiltbank & Boeker) As an investment asset class, we know that Angel returns can average 2.6X the investment in 3.5 years – an internal rate of return (IRR) of about 27%. This compares very well with other asset classes (Wiltbank). However, looking only at averages can be very misleading!
Distribution of Returns by Venture Investment
60
10% of Investments Produce 90% of Cash
50
UK: Overall Multiple: 2.2X
40
Holding Period: 3.6 years; Approx.: 22% IRR
30
US: Overall Multiple: 2.6X
20
Holding Period: 3.5 years; Approx.: 27% IRR
10
10–20X
30X
< 1X
1–5X
5–10X
Exit Multiple
Orange Bar: UK % of exits in that category Source: Wiltbank , Returns to Angels in Groups . Angel Capital Association
Blue Bar: US % of exits in that category
The distribution of returns shows that over half of all investments never return their original capital or fail completely (less than 1X, or the first bar in the graph above). In contrast, 10% of exits produce 90% of total returns (the last bar in the graph). Since only one in ten investments will account for almost all returns, successful Angels must use a portfolio approach. (This need for a portfolio to reduce risk is the same as the reasoning behind mutual funds or index funds.) Investing in only a couple of deals over several years (i.e., dabbling at being an Angel) is a weak investment strategy.
How to Achieve Good Returns
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