By: Sonia Gioseffi, Partner, K&L Gates

The venture capital industry has exploded in both dollars and geography since its beginnings, as evidenced by an increase in the size of venture capital funds and the attraction of large pools of capital from institutional investors. 

By: Emily Angold, ACA Marketing Manager

As an entrepreneur and seasoned angel investor, Bill Payne understands the critical importance of education to make well-informed decisions that determine the success or failure of a startup.

By: Dror Futter, Legal and Business Adviser to Startups, Venture Capital Firms and Technology Companies

Remember all those articles about whether venture was overvalued?  With blinding speed, they now seem quaint.

Bluntly stated, most venture-backed companies are in a fight for survival.  Although certain areas of life sciences may do somewhat better, I think the impact will be widely felt.  Complicating the fight is the fact that no one can predict how long it will last and what the immediate post-Corona economy will look like. 

By: Kevin Learned and Denise Dunlap, Boise Angel Alliance

Terms like “warrants, waterfalls and preferences” can be confusing and intimidating when attempting to understand a capitalization table (aka cap table); it is no wonder we are often asked for a simple way to understand them! This article will give a brief overview of why cap tables are important and introduce a simple model to use early in the due diligence process.

By Hambleton Lord, ACA member, managing director of Launchpad Venture Group and co-founder of Seraf Investor.  This blog post originally appeared on the Seraf blog, as part of their “Angel 101” series.

Experience is what you get, when you don’t get what you want. Fifteen years ago, when I made my first angel investment, I wish I knew then what I know today. As a newly minted angel in 2000, I assumed that angel investing would be easy to jump into and become successful at. I was partially right… it was easy to jump into. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy to become successful.  

By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director

Yesterday I took a call from an accelerator managing partner who wanted to educate some of his investors on how to get started in angel investing.  As I put together a list of resources for him, it occurred to me that lots of angel investors and others are interested in this information, so let me share my list here!

This is also a chance to mention that the Angel Capital Association is now starting our new monthly “Best Practice” Webinar series aimed at providing education on the key things new investors need to know:  having a portfolio strategy to begin with, valuation, due diligence, term sheets, sourcing deals, etc.  If you like these, you can also download the decks from the main webinar page.  This program is in partnership with The Rising Tide Fund, Kauffman Foundation, Go Beyond Investing, Portfolia and Next Wave Ventures.  We’ll have more information about this exciting program soon.

By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director

Recently I had the chance to check in with ACA members in detail on their preferred investment structures.  This all started in June at the ACA Pacific Northwest Regional Meeting, attended by more than 200 investors.  One of my favorite sessions was a debate on deal terms, with Angela Jackson of the Portland Seed Fund arguing for convertible notes and Bill Payne of Frontier Angels speaking for priced rounds.  It was a lively discussion and you could tell the audience was into it. 

By A.J. Watson of Fundify, LLC in Austin, TX.  The article originally appeared on Medium.com and provides new analysis on the dataset behind the 2007 study "Returns of Angels in Groups" by Rob Wiltbank.