2018 Halo Report released

The Angel Resource Institute has released its latest analysis of 2018 angel investing. Characterizing the full year of investments captured in the annual survey – more than 2,500 individual transactions – the report profiles activity by several different factors useful in understanding regional differences in the early stage financing community. It should be noted, however, that adjustments in the deal size ceiling for inclusion in the analysis for 2018, to reflect the degree to which angels are participating in next-stage rounds (Series A), make comparisons to previous years less meaningful.  

There are still many interesting data points profiling the regions in a manner to reflect industry sector preferences, deal structures, valuation and investment sizes, type of investment (new v. follow-on), investment geographic stickiness, and CEO gender and ethnicity by stage of deal.  Some examples:

• Only one in seven CEOs receiving seed or series A capital from angel investors in 2018 was female.  Of that 14 percent that were females, one-third were from minority ethnicities.
• Deals in new companies accounted for 59 percent of all activity in 2018.
• California deals represented 19.13 percent of the survey sample, continuing to bat above its weight as measured by its 12 percent share of total U.S. population.
• Sharply up from the any of the past four years of surveys, 68 percent of all investments by New Yorkers went to companies outside the region. Meanwhile, reflecting a shift toward more local stickiness, less than 8 percent of Pacific Northwest angels ventured out of the region with their dollars in 2018.
• Convertible debt was the deal structure of choice in the Great Plains, representing 28 percent of all deals. Debt also outperformed the national average in New York, Texas, the Southeast and Southwest.
• With 84 deals in 2018, Houston Angel Network (HAN) was the most active group in the country and in its home state of Texas, as might be expected. Perhaps more surprisingly, HAN was also the 2^nd most active group investing in the state of California, 3^rd most active in New York and 4^th most active in the Great Plains.

The full report is available here: https://angelresourceinstitute.org/research-reports.php

SSTI’s Annual Conference will feature a session dedicated to Managing an Investment Network, along with other opportunities to learn about building capital. For more information, visit ssticonference.org.