Angel Investing
TLDR
Investing personal capital in very early-stage companies, typically before institutional Venture Capital.
Definition
Angel investing is the practice of individuals, usually former operators or successful entrepreneurs, putting their own money into very early-stage companies. Checks are typically 10,000 to 250,000 EUR, rounds are pre-seed or seed, and the investor often adds operational guidance alongside the capital.
Angels differ from Venture Capital firms in three ways: they invest their own money not a fund's, they make decisions individually not by committee, and they usually do not sit on boards formally.
Why it matters
The angel layer is where most ecosystems either compound or stall. Without active angels, new founders have no local capital source for the first round, which is usually too small for institutional VCs. Belgium has historically under-indexed on angel activity relative to its entrepreneurial output, though the pattern is improving as former operators from breakouts like Collibra and Odoo cycle capital back into earlier companies.
Several people in this wiki combine angel investing with Entrepreneurship, reflecting the pattern of active founders reinvesting alongside building their next company.
Mechanism
Angel cheques are often the first outside money a company takes. The structure is usually a SAFE or a convertible note, with conversion into the next priced round. Active angels tend to concentrate their portfolio in sectors they know from operating experience.
Related
- Parent: Company Building
- Sibling: Venture Capital - the institutional layer that follows
- Sibling: Entrepreneurship - where most angels come from