
AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting
startups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...
,
angel investor
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...
s, and
limited partners
A limited partnership (LP) is a type of partnership with general partners, who have a right to manage the business, and limited partners, who have no right to manage the business but have only limited liability for its debts. Limited partnership ...
.
Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed
seed funding
Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...
.
Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge.
Created by
serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
and Babak Nivi in 2010,
Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.
History
AngelList was founded in 2010 by
serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
and Babak Nivi. Using the traction from the Venture Hack blog on entrepreneur financing, Naval and Babak started a list of 25 investors with whom they would share interesting companies to invest in.
They announced the list as "AngelList" in 2010, with the subscription of 50
angel investors
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt ...
who intended to invest USD $80 million that year.
Mission and operations
Business Insider
''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...
dubbed AngelList the "
Match.com for investors and startups". In a recent interview,
Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
wants more "innovation on
heinfrastructure for innovation itself" by helping startups with money, talent, and customers.
AngelList's Syndicate facilitates startup financing with
accredited investor
An accredited or sophisticated investor is an investor with a special status under financial regulation laws. The definition of an accredited investor (if any), and the consequences of being classified as such, vary between countries. Generally, ac ...
s. AngelList Jobs, later rebranded as Wellfound, connect talents with startups, with over 35,000 recruiting companies, more than 2,000,000 candidates and 5 million registered users.
AngelList's acquisition of
Product Hunt
Product Hunt is an American website to share and discover new products. It was founded by Ryan Hoover in November 2013.
Users submit products, which are listed in a linear format by day. The site includes a comments system and a voting system ...
will allow more support for startups with customer generation and product launch.
AngelList Syndicates allow startups to raise money from accredited investors investing alongside prominent angel investors.
History
AngelList launched Jobs – its recruiting portal – in 2012.
In late 2012, AngelList launched a portal for accelerators and incubators to accept and manage applications from startups to their programs. At opening, AngelList accepted applications for
500 Startups
500 Global (previously 500 Startups) is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, Californ ...
,
TechStars Boston, and
AngelPad. Other accelerators, like
Rock Health, accept applications exclusively through AngelList.
In 2013, AngelList received a no-action letter from the SEC, allowing the operations of its Syndicates platform. FundersClub also received such a letter in the same period. AngelList Syndicates was noted as one of the most important innovations in the venture capital and angel investment industries, getting momentum with several well-known figures in the tech community creating syndicates, including
Jason Calacanis
Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is a podcaster, American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and author.
His first company was part of the Dot-com bubble, dot-com era in New York. His second venture, Weblogs, Inc., a publishi ...
,
Scott Banister,
Tim Ferriss
Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He is known for his ''4-Hour'' self-help book series—including ''The 4-Hour Work Week'', ''The 4-Hour Body'', and ''The 4-Hour Ch ...
,
Gil Penchina, Scott and
Cyan Banister,
Fabrice Grinda
Fabrice Grinda (born 3 August 1974) is a French entrepreneur, blogger for '' Business Insider'' and super angel, with more than 200 investments around the world, including Alibaba Group, Airbnb, Beepi, FanDuel, Palantir, and Windeln. Grinda ...
, Elad Gil and more.
In 2017, AngelList had 4,400 investors operating across 165 syndicates.
In March 2014, AngelList launched Maiden Lane, a first online venture fund for investing in syndicated deals.
It was launched with more than $25 million in funding from a variety of investors. In 2014, women represented only 7.4% of all AngelList investors.
In October 2015, AngelList announced a deal with a Chinese third-largest private equity firm CSC (China Science & Merchants Investment Management Group) for establishing a new $400 million fund for early-stage startup investments.
According to ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', the deal became the "largest single pool of funds devoted to early-stage startups — ever," and also the "largest-ever single investment by a Chinese private-equity firm in a U.S. fund."
Prior to the deal, the ''Wall Street Journal'' said AngelList "had raised $205 million from all sources, including $43 million from institutional investors."
In July 2016, AngelList launched Republic - a spinoff addressing the democratization of startup equity crowdfunding with non-accredited investors.
In November 2016, AngelList acquired
Product Hunt
Product Hunt is an American website to share and discover new products. It was founded by Ryan Hoover in November 2013.
Users submit products, which are listed in a linear format by day. The site includes a comments system and a voting system ...
for $20 million.
Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
planned to use Product Hunt to further "
elpcompanies find their early customers."
In October 2017, CoinList –
initial coin offering
An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of c ...
services for startups and accredited investors – spun off from AngelList. At the end of 2017 AngelList had profiles of over 70,000 startups.
In early 2018, AngelList expanded its Syndicates program to India.
In 2020, AngelList launched
rolling funds, an investment vehicle that raises money through a quarterly subscription from interested investors. In the same year, AngelList India's CEO,
Utsav Somani, launched a $5 million micro-fund,
iSeed SEA, to invest in startups located in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
.
In 2021, AngelList raised $25 million for the AngelList Early Stage Quant Fund, an investment vehicle which plans to invest $250,000 in over 100 companies.
In March 2022, AngelList closed its $100 million Series B led by
Tiger Global. One month later, the company raised another bridge round of $44 million.
In November 2022, AngelList Talent was spun out as a separate company and rebranded as Wellfound.
In June 2023, AngelList announced its acquisition of Nova, an investor management software for institutional private funds. The purchase supported CEO
Avlok Kohli's initiative to expand AngelList's customer base to include private equity.
Involvement in the JOBS Act
In mid-2012,
Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
and Kevin Laws, AngelList's chief operating officer, were active in Washington in his support for the
Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, is a law intended to encourage funding of small businesses in the United States by easing many of the country's securities regulations. It passed with bipartisan support, and was signed int ...
(JOBS Act), a law that eased many of the United States' securities regulations with the aim of making it easier for companies to either go
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
or to remain
private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...
longer while continuing to raise capital.
He was in discussion with "Senate and Congressional staffers,
Steve Case
Stephen McConnell Case (born August 21, 1958) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist best known as the former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online (AOL). Case joined AOL's predecessor company, Quantum Compu ...
, and influential Congressmen who would listen." During the same period, he organized an
online petition
An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. T ...
that attracted 5,000 signatures on a letter to Senate leaders in support of the Act.
Later in 2013,
Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postma ...
wrote a letter to the SEC to object to changes in the
JOBS Act
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, is a law intended to encourage funding of small businesses in the United States by easing many of the country's securities regulations. It passed with bipartisan support, and was signed int ...
that he believed "could create disastrous unintended consequences for the startup community."
References
External links
* {{LittleSis
*Main
Companies based in San Francisco
Financial services companies established in 2010
Business services companies established in 2010
Employment social networks
2010 establishments in California
American companies established in 2010
Crowdfunding platforms of the United States