2021 Report on Angel Investing in Canada

E X ECU T I V E S UMMA RY I nves tment Ac t i v i t y i n 2020

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Angel organizations have the fi- nancial capacity to make follow-on investments. This is critical in en- abling portfolio companies to scale- up. Follow-on investments account- ed for 34% of their investments in 2020, similar to previous years. This proportion was also similar to that in recent years, but lower than in 2015 and 2016. In many cases, angel organizations invest alongside other investors as part of a larger syndicate, so the overall deal size is often much larg- er than angel organization invest- ments alone would indicate. It is not possible to report statistics on the

in the number of investments com- pared with 2019 but a decline in the amount invested. From a lon- ger-term perspective, the number of investments was lower than in both 2017 and 2018, while the amount in- vested was lower than in the previ- ous five years. The mean size of investment was $233,000, a lower amount than in any of the previous five years. How- ever, with the exception of 2019, the average size of investment has declined in each year since 2015, suggesting that the further de- cline in 2020 is not necessarily COVID-related.

Of the more than 6,500 business- es that approached these angel or- ganizations, 22% were selected for presentation to investors. Angels undertook due diligence on 34% of these businesses. Angels invested in 86% of the businesses that reached the due diligence stage. This rep- resents 6% of the businesses that initially approached these angel or- ganizations for funding. These pro- portions are not materially different from previous years. Angel organizations made 416 in- vestments into 355 unique com- panies in 2020, investing a total of $102.9 million. This is an increase

202 1 ANNUAL REPORT ON ANGEL I NVEST I NG I N CANADA The Chang i ng Landscape

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