Find the right angel
Just as with VCs, focus on finding an angel that fully fits you and your company. Ask yourself: can this angel really help your company? Do you like the way he or she works? Do they know your business? Have they build similar stuff themselves? Do they get highly referenced? Are you important to them? A little known, but upcoming angel may be a better fit for you than someone who has been cutting checks for many years. Do your homework before reaching out.
AngelList Stack
AngelList is, as the name says, a great source for info on angel investors. We've created some direct links, but you can use the site to find and sort any list: North America | South America | Europe | Asia | Africa | Oceania
Some notable angels
There are so many great angel investors! We're mentioning just a few here.
We've left out angels that are also part of full VC funds such as Fabrice Grinda (FJ Labs),
Ron Conway (SV Angel), Reid Hoffman (Greylock) and Tim Draper.
Let us know if we need to add people to the list.
» Naval Ravikant: founder of AngelList; first in Uber, Notion and many more
» Scott & Cyan Bannister: renowned investor couple; portfolio full of unicorns
» Jason Calacanis: find "angel" in the dictionairy and it says "Jason Calacanis"
» Chris Sacca: Prolific angel investor with big number of homeruns
» All YC partners: Network, network, and network. YC is a powerhouse
» Mark Cuban: Built many big companies, took one to IPO; prolific investor
» Semil Shah: Invested early in many unicorns; runs Haystack
» Max Levchin: Founder of (a.o.) Paypal, Slide, and Affirm; occasional investor
» Auren Hoffman: CEO of Safegraph, former founder and CEO of Liveramp
» Tod Sacerdoti: Founder of Brightroll and Pipedream
» Joshua Schachter: Founder of del.icio.us and Tasty Labs
» Rick Marini: Investor in 8 unicorns; now runs Protocol ventures
» Charlie Songhurst: Full time investor in many, many startups
» Elad Gil: Founder of Color Genomics; investor in many unicorns
» Gil Penchina: called the "King of AngelList"; former CEO of Wikia
» Esther Dyson: one of the first deep tech and health angels
» Joanne Wilson: very active angel with ~100 deals; known as the Gotham Gal
» Xavier Niel: founder of Kima ventures: 100 deals... each year!
» Will Herman: very active founder and very active investor
» Clark Landry: founder of CESPPA; ~30 exits from angel deals
» Dharmesh Shah: founder and CTO of Hubspot; >30 exits
» Matt Mullenweg: founder Wordpress; on/off angel investor
Upcoming angels
Over the last few years, a great number of new angels have emerged, in part due to
initiatives such as Spearhead. Many have (had) crucial operating and/or gowth roles
at successful companies. Often, they are solo GPs having raised money from funds.
We're mentioning a few below. Let us know if we need
to add people to the list.
» Brianne Kimmel: founder of SAAS School and WorkLife ventures
» Niv Dvor: fabulous brand builder; runs Shrug Capital
» Zach Coelius: known for his insights and energy and... his red shirt
» Ryan Hoover: founder of Producthunt; runs the Weekend Fund
» Katie Jacobs Stanton: was VP at Twitter; now runs Moxxie ventures
» Sarah Kunst: top innovator running Cleo Capital
» Jeff Morris, jr: turned Tinder into money machine; now investing fulltime
» Lee Linden: Founder of Tapjoy and Karma; now runs Quiet Capital
» Shruti Gandhi: did investments at True; now running Array ventures
» Alexia Bonatsos: wrote for Techcrunch, now investing with Dream Machine
» Lynne Chou: worked at Kleiner Perkins, now driving Define ventures
» Mallun Yen: SaaStr superfan now running Operator Collective
» Ali Rosenthal: helped Facebook explode; now at LeadOut Capital
» Shelley Zhuang: started at DFJ, now running the show at 11.2 Capital
» Sarah Cone: investing in areas of human need with Social Impact Capital
» Pascal Levy-Garboua: helped Checkr go big, investor in >100 companies
» Ed Roman: runs the biggest hack conference; and Hack VC
» Sundeep Ahuja: sometime actor; now running Climate Capital
» Immad Akhund: CEO of Mercury but also frequent investor
» Jude Gomila: CEO of Golden but also frequent investor
» Dave Eisenberg: From Bonobos, through Floored, to Zigg Capital
» Jacob Gibson: Nerdwallet founder turned angel (and soon VC)
» Tom Williams: one of the most involved angels in the game
» Simun Sadhu: CEO at Plato Design and worldwide angel
» Erik Torenberg: Investing money through VillageGlobal
» Barney Pell: Founder of Powerset; now prolific deep tech angel
» Sriram Krishnan (#1): Spotify, Tinder and now Headspin; strong angel
» Sriram Krishnan (#2): Twitter, Snap, Facebook and now angel investing
» Brad Flora: YC partner and successful founder and angel
» Bryan Rosenblatt: previously at Reddit; now at Craft and angel investing
» Tyler Willis: Founder of Unsupervised and bright angel
» Utsav Somani: Founder of iSeed: writing checks in India
» Pete Soderling: founder of Data Council; running Data Community Fund
» Neil Devani: fulltime angel running Necessary ventures
» Peter Livingston: over 150 investments, and still increasing pace
» Ryan Delk: lots of operator experience; investing while building
» Matt Brezina: two exits as founder; couple of unicorns in portfolio
» Nathan Doctor: investing while running two VC-backed startups
» Angkur Nagpal: founder of Teachable; knows all about the creator economy
» Alan Rutledge: CEO at TrendMD and all around angel
» Celestine Schnugg: runs Boom capital
» Josh Mohrer and William Barnes: Uber alumni investment club
» Tom Follows: at Uber, but doing lots of angel deals
» Kesha Cash: founded Jalia Ventures and now the Impact America fund
» Shawn Merani: previously at Flight Ventures; now running Parade Ventures
» Masha Drokova: investing from Day One ventures
Angel groups
Next to individual angels, there are many angel groups. They often have hundreds of members. Listing a couple of well-known ones here. You can also
check out the website of the Angel Capital Association
which lists groups sorted by region.
» Tech Coast Angels
» Social Venture Circle
» Sand Hill Angels
» Golden Seeds
» Band of Angels
» Hyde Park Angels
» Alliance of Angels
» New York Angels
» Life Science Angels
» Queen City Angels
» Boston Harbor Angels
» Atlanta Technology Angels
» Launchpad Venture group
» Central Texas Angel Network
» Maine Angels
» Upstate Carolina Angel Network
Other lists of angel investors
» 50 angel investors based on volume and success (Forbes, 2018)
» Solo GPs with funds (BI, 2020)
» Europe's top angels (Sifted, 2019)
Old stuff
» Top 20 angels (CB, 2014)
» 15 top angels of all time (Inc, 2014)
» Top 40 business angels in Europe (2017)