Ask HN: best way to (indirectly) invest in a startup via angel/seed fund?

Background of question:

I am in the fortunate position of recently exiting a business I co-founded in 2002 in the UK healthcare technology sector that sold to one of the top 3 US healthcare companies and I'm now on a short sabbatical to look at new opportunities and try new things - such as angel investing.

I remember one of the hardest problems we faced in the early years of my business was not technical related but fund raising as you would expect (obviously harder then due to domcom afershocks etc). So now, 8 years later, other than starting another company (or even joining another startup!), I also want to give back and invest in other startups but as I have only invested in my own I don't believe I yet qualify to be an direct angel investor as other than money I'm not sure what extra value I could bring as I mainly have very specific domain knowledge in UK primary care healthcare sector (I’m have a techie/developer background) and have limited connections outside this field.

In my research I have found places like angellist and startup funds like http://www.kimaventures.com/ but my question is how does one invest into a seed or angel fund as there is little or no information about how to go about it - it seems that either you know someone in this area or your outta luck? There is plenty of info on how to raise funds from angels and angellist describes an angels application requirements (3 previous investments for example) so how to do I get out of this (apparent) chicken and egg problem?

Has anyone on HN got experience in this particularly from the UK/EU that can input - like what angel funds in the EU/US are open to newbie angel investors.

I also think I would rather invest in US based startups unless others can recommend otherwise.

Appreciate any feedback on this topic. Thanks.

Have you had a look at these (not that I'm recommending, but might be worth a look)?

http://www.angelinvestmentnetwork.co.uk/home http://www.venturegiant.com/ http://www.angelsden.co.uk/

I believe Business Link also run a similar scheme but I generally stay well clear of them, I've yet to see anyone from Business Link try to do anything other than sell me more Business Link stuff I don't need.

Best of luck.

Can I ask a question back? You were obviously in a UK startup. Why don't you want to invest in the UK?

Not judging here. Just curious as I'm scoping out the startup 'scene' in London.

Good question: Yes I was in a UK startup. I feel that the risk adverse nature/attitude we came across significantly impedes innovation in the UK (remember this is in my experience and this was around 2001-2005). I believe we had to work harder to overcome this and this took focus away from our core activities at times. We often found no one was willing to invest unless you had 5 years of track record and £1mill/yr turnover and if you where doing something disruptive (like we were) and innovative in a new market, then it was even harder. So I guess I feel there is more chance that good startup WITH cash will fail due to being crushed by this problem. Plus I think the US is known for its better startup fostering nature and work ethic as suggested in this article. http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/11/20/european-startups-need-t...

Wooly reasons but having said all that, times have changed and I'm not against UK startups at all, I would just like to look at US ones first... I suppose if a UK startup was doing something disruptive in healthcare I might be more interested!