Poll: Who’s The Top Angel Investor in the US?

Zach Davis Apr 12, 2012 Tweet

Angel investors play a pivotal role in the backbone of the early-stage startup ecosystem (note: understatement of the century).  Not only do angels provide roughly the same amount of financing as venture capital firms ($20.1B versus $23.3B in 2010), but startups who acquire their funds from angels are more likely to survive the first four years as compared to obtaining other forms of early stage funding.

With President Obama’s recent signing of the JOBS Act, crowdfunding is poised to change the landscape for early stage funding.  What this means to the state of angel investing, however, has yet to be determined.  According Glen Hellman, Chief Entrepreneureator at Driven Forward LLC and Tech Cocktail contributor, this new legislation will bring about two changes: “We’re going to see more companies get funding, and we’re going to see higher valuations.  Overall we’ll see more companies come through the pipeline – both good and bad.  We’ll fund these companies, we’ll just fund them later and we’ll have to pay more for them than we do right now.”

Although the recent passing of the JOBS Act could mean a potential phase shift, change is nothing new and something all angel investors are used to.  Regardless of what the future holds in store for angel investing, we want to know what you think about the present.  If we took a snapshot of the market as is, and asked, “If you could choose only one angel investor to get on board with your startup, who would that be?” how would you answer?

Share your opinion by taking the poll below.