Introducing the Angels' Share 100

Wing is a pure-play venture firm, dedicated to early-stage investing and long-term company building. We lead Seed and Series A financings, and engage deeply with our companies over the long haul, striving to help our founders “ring the bell” and create businesses of enduring value. This is hard work, and we know we need all the help we can get!

An important source of help has been the individual investors we work with. Individuals investing alongside us have consistently made powerful contributions to ultimate success. So we set out to study these “angels” in our midst. Who are they? Where did they come from? What allows them to make a difference?

Unfortunately the current process for identifying angel investors is filled with friction and inefficiency. Data in the angel market is broken. Data reporting and capture are fragmented, incomplete, and inaccurate in the data sources such as PitchBook, Crunchbase, and AngelList. Many angel investments are not reported, and many reported investments are not recorded consistently and accurately.

That is why, in partnership with Business Insider, we unveil today the Angels’ Share 100. The Angels’ Share 100 is an exclusive list of the most active angel investors in the most promising startups in enterprise tech. The mission is to serve as an information and relationship platform for the founder and angel community.

See the full list here and analysis here.

Whiskey connoisseurs will recognize the term “angels’ share” from the whiskey making process. The portion of the whiskey that evaporates from oak barrels during aging is known as the angels’ share. The term was dubbed originally in medieval Ireland and Scotland, when whiskey distillers viewed the angels’ share, which perfumed storehouses, as an offering to the angels. The partners of Wing definitely enjoy their whiskey, and also have tremendous respect for the angel investors we work with, so Angels’ Share seemed like the perfect name for the project!

The underlying basis for the Angels’ Share 100 study is extensive primary and secondary research on angel investors and investments, conducted by the Wing team over the past six months. In addition, the proprietary stack-ranking of enterprise tech startups comes from the Enterprise Tech 30, an annual study that is in its sixth year and is conducted with select venture capitalists on an invitation-only basis. The “ET30” data is a critical component of the study, because it provides an indicator of investment quality long before investment exit, which is of course a lagging indicator.

In this blog post, we also analyze the characteristics of the Angels’ Share 100 investors and investment activity. Who are the angel investors? At which companies and positions did they work, and at which schools and fields did they study? What are their investment patterns? In addition, we describe in detail the methodology and definitions of the Angels’ Share 100 study.

Key findings

Since the time of their angel investments, the Angels’ Share 100 have had a $1.3 trillion dollar increase in valuations of their portfolio companies–a new “Trillion Dollar” impact in tech

The angel investors are insiders, actively building companies. They are not retired or at the latter end of their careers. 55 are CEOs. 61 are millennials. The median age is 41.

85 of the 100 angel investors founded at least 1 company. 19 founded $1B+ public companies, and 25 founded $1B+ private companies.

The group has more high school and college dropouts (11 of 100) than PhD’s (3 of 100).

The angel investors’ primary focus is Seed and Series A rounds. However, the investors also frequently invest in Series B and later rounds for high-performing companies where they may have missed earlier rounds.

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Detailed findings

Angels’ Work Experiences

The majority of the angel investors are founders themselves. 85 of the 100 founded at least 1 company. 19 founded public companies that went public for $1 billion or more, 23 founded companies that sold for $100 million or more, and 25 founded private companies that are currently valued at $1 billion or more.

The angel investors are not retired or toward the latter end of their career. Rather, they are insiders, actively building companies themselves and working behind the scenes to shape the enterprise tech economy. 55 of the 100 are current CEOs, and only 21 are independent without a full-time role.

The angel investors’ backgrounds focus on engineering (30 of 100), product (25 of 100), and CTO (22 of 100). The group also includes GTM leaders with backgrounds in marketing (10 of 100), business development (8 of 100), and sales (7 of 100).

Prior companies where angel investors worked include Google (13 of 100), LinkedIn (7 of 100), and Microsoft (7 of 100). Overall, 29 of the 100 worked at MAMAA companies (Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon). 95 of the 100 were at startups at one point in their careers, including 26 of the 100 at the Cumulative ET30. 8 previously worked in consulting, and 6 previously worked in investment banking.

Angels’ Education

The Angels’ Share 100 has more high school and college dropouts than PhD’s. 2 of the 100 dropped out of high school; 9 of the 100 dropped out of college; and an additional 5 dropped out of Master’s and PhD’s. 40 of the 100 have Master’s, and 3 of the 100 have PhD’s. 36 of the 100 went to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, or Berkeley. 65 have technical degrees, while 35 have non-technical degrees only. 46 of the 100 have computer science degrees.

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Angels’ Demographics

As mentioned above, the angel investors are actively working and are not toward the latter end of their careers. The medianage is 41 today, and the median age at the time of the first angel investment was 31. 61 of the 100 are millennials.

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Angels’ Social Media Presence

Although the angel investors are not from pop culture–with one exception–they are well known with the community of enterprise tech builders. 93 have X accounts, and the median number of followers is 15,903. 41 of the 100 have 25,000 followers or more. The social media dynamics could be that founders seek angel investors who evangelize their products, or that the angel investors seek emerging founders and companies through social media–or a bit of both.

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Angels’ Investment Volume

The angel investors are highly accomplished and successful. Collectively, they have 4,110 angel investments, including 345 unicorns and 36 decacorns. The group’s portfolio includes:

33 of the 40 ET30 (which consists of the top 10 companies in each of four stages in this year’s ET30 study)
77 of the 105 Cumulative ET30 (which consists of the top 10 companies per stage across all five years of the ET30 study)
297 of the 553 ET30 Universe (which consists of all companies with 1 or more votes in this year’s ET30 study)
581 of the 1,523 Cumulative ET30 Universe (which consists of all companies with 1 or more votes across all five years of the ET30 study)

The median angel investor has 45 investments, according to our data thus far.

Two important methodology notes here.

1) We have captured, reconciled, and cleaned up all primary and secondary data available to us for the angel investors. However, we believe we are still under-stating the volume of the activity! This is our first year of the Angels’ Share 100 study, and we believe we will be able to access more data on more investors and investments as the study builds and improves over time.

2) Some of the angels’ investments are through institutionally-led co-investment programs, where institutional investment firms orchestrated the angels’ involvement. In these cases, there may be limited-to-no engagement by angels with the companies. Institutionally-led angel investments is an area of future refinement for next year’s Angels’ Share 100 study.

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Angels’ Co-Investment Activity

The angel investors also frequently invest together. For ET30 companies with an Angels’ Share investor, there is a median of 3 investors per company and a high of 11 in one company. For ET30 Universe companies with an Angels’ Share investor, there is a median of 2 investors per company and a high of 18 in one company.

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Angels’ Portfolio Companies Valuation Increase

Of the angels’ 4,110 investments, 1,947 have known valuation data at the times of the angel investments and currently. The 1,947 companies have increased their valuations by $1.3 trillion since the time of the angel investments, representing a new “Trillion Dollar” impact in tech. The median valuation increase has been $21 million, and the average valuation increase has been $669 million.

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Angels’ Exits

The angel investors have had 856 exits for $901 billion, of which there were 53 IPOs for $594 billion and 802 acquisitions for $307 billion. The investors have specifically had:

81 $1B+ exits for $773 billion, of which there were 44 $1B+ IPOs for $578 billion and 37 $1B+ acquisitions for $196 billion
17 $10B+ exits for $555 billion, of which there were 14 $10B+ IPOs for $461 billion and 3 $10B+ acquisitions for $94 billion

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Angels’ Investment Pace

The angel investors’ activity slowed significantly from 2022 to 2023, commensurate with the slowdown in the overall venture capital market. The angels have made 345 investments in 2023 year-to-date, as compared to 746 investments in 2022 and 870 investments in 2021.

Angels’ Investments by Time Since Founding and by Stage

Angel investors most frequently enter companies at early stage rounds. 91% of first-time investments in 2023 were at the Seed or Series A stage. Further, the median time since founding for first-time angel investments in 2023 was 1.8 years. This time since founding of nearly t=2 may imply that angel investors generally get connected into companies after some initial momentum, rather than invest at t=0 inception through pre-existing founder relationships.

However, in addition to the bread and butter of early stage investments, we notice a dynamic of later stage investments for angel investors in high-performing companies. 46% of first-time investments in the Cumulative ET30 and 50% of first-time investments in the Cumulative ET30 Universe were at the Series B or later stages in 2023. The median time since founding was 3.7 and 4.2 years in the Cumulative ET30 and the Cumulative ET30 Universe, respectively. If angel investors missed early stage investments in exceptional companies, they are finding the companies and making the investments at later stages. The dynamic could be that founders seek the angel investors for counsel and prestige, or that investors seek out the profile of performing companies–or again a bit of both.

Methodology

The methodology for the Angels’ Share 100 combines 1) extensive primary and secondary research on angel investors and investments with 2) the proprietary stack-ranked database of the most promising startups in enterprise tech as determined by the 6th annual Enterprise Tech 30 study.

The process has four phases.

First, we identify the pool of angel investors for the study. Using Pitchbook and the ET30 Universe, we downloaded an initial list of 3,262 angel candidates and selected the most active 318 for detailed review. We categorized and tagged the 318 for inclusion or exclusion based on our definition of angel investor. The result was a pool of 166 angel investors.

Our definition of an angel investor is an individual who is investing personal capital directly into startups. We specifically exclude individuals who are venture capitalists, solo capitalists, or angel fund managers, as they are managing third-party capital and receiving professional management fees. We also exclude venture partners at venture capital firms. Angel investors include founders, executives, celebrities, or former founders, executives, or celebrities. Angel investors include former venture capitalists and angel group leaders

Our definition of an angel investment includes transactions by personal check or through investment vehicles with personal capital and without management fees. Investments through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and through family offices with professional staff who source and make independent investment decisions are excluded. Investments through joint angel investment vehicles without management fees are included

Second, we build a database of angel investments using secondary data across PitchBook, Crunchbase, AngelList, and Harmonic. In the process, we reconcile for varying company and investor name spellings (and misspellings). This year, we downloaded and reviewed 35,746 investments across 8,046 investor entities.

Third, we conduct primary research with the angel investors to verify and update the financing data. Our final database this year included 2,677 investments across the 166 angel investors, of which 1,570 investments were sourced through primary research

Fourth, we apply the ET30 Universe voting data to the angel investments database. We rank the angel investors by both 1) the number of ET30 Universe companies in their portfolio and 2) the number of ET30 Universe votes in their portfolio. We averaged the two rankings to determine the final ranking, and we publish the top 100 as the Angels’ Share 100.

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Conclusion

The investment track record of the Angels’ Share 100 reflects the powerful difference key individuals make. Congratulations to all Angels’ Share 100 investors for making the inaugural list. We are excited and honored to recognize you and your work in enterprise tech, and it is our hope that Angels’ Share 100 serves as a platform for founders and angels to discover, meet, and work together.

Let us know your thoughts @peter_wagner and @rajeevchand.

June 12, 2024

We are excited to unveil today the Angels’ Share 100. The Angels’ Share 100 is an exclusive list of the most active angel investors in the most promising startups in enterprise tech. The mission is to serve as an information and relationship platform for the founder and angel community.