My angel investing story
After I closed my startup in early 2022, I wanted to remain involved in the space and became more interested in angel investing.
While fundraising for my startup, I met several angels and venture capitalists and on the surface it looked like they were having a lot of fun. I started asking my friends and Google how to get started in angel investing. A friend who was established in venture capital recommended an angel group called Halo Health. I met with them and soon was seeing lots of pitch decks.
I still had no idea how to vet a startup, a process called due diligence. Around the same time I started becoming more active on LinkedIn. I made a purposeful decision to be honest and transparent with my thoughts. As my LinkedIn grew it soon became another source of deal flow both directly from founders reaching out and other investors and venture capitalists.
I had already read a few books on investing when I was fundraising. The ones I liked the most were:
4 books I would recommend to any angel investor
While reading books did provide me a foundation, I still had to invest in my first startup. I came across Vena Medical through Halo Health. I have a strong propensity towards action without planning, which allows me to get started right away but also opens me to unnecessary risk.
To be frank, I did not do enough due diligence before investing in Vena Medical and my process has changed considerably since then. They are doing well and although valuations at this stage are hard to discern, my initial investment has likely doubled so far. We will talk about the due diligence process in the next webinar and upcoming newsletters.
A few of you have reached out asking about sources to learn angel investing. I will keep providing information through this newsletter, other website’s to check out are:
Looking forward to sharing more with you soon.
Sincerely,
Rishad
