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AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

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Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#11

Post by tedmiston »

> Meanwhile, AngelList is adding new ways for people to get into private-company investing. With some 600 startups expected to raise money through the website next year, AngelList said it’s creating a sort of index fund for young companies that will hold shares in 100 to 200 startups. Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more.

This could be interesting. I wonder if it will be restricted to accredited investors or offered to the layman?

As always, of course there are no guarantees in startup returns, but spread over that many companies... well, I'm not sure what to expect. I guess it all depends on the returns and how they decide to pick companies. It could be a cool new take on index investing. Then again, I became wary of most things "cool" and "new" in investing.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#12

Post by tedmiston »

nivi wrote: post #7
rch wrote: post #5

Weird article. AngelList is raising money to make new investments and reports an unrealized 46% IRR, and that somehow makes for a gloomy story.

The real story is 46% unrealized returns on 2013 syndicate investments. Which is in the upper top quartile of VC. And A-List, a premium recruiting product for busy companies. That complements our free recruiting product with 180K active candidates. Down markets are a good time to invest, but we're not anticipating one. http://angel.co/returns http://alist.co

Care to elaborate on the methodology for how you pick companies? Does AngelList act like its own VC internally?

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#13

Post by cloudjacker »

sotojuan wrote: post #10
let1kbl00m wrote: post #9

You can't even raise money on AngelList. It's just yet another shitty (okay, decent) jobs site. Why the hell AngelList can't create Kickerstart-for-Startups after all these years and significant funding is beyond comprehension. 1. Have startups fill out a YC-like applications. 2. Get investors to write the good checks. If AngelList can't do this then it doesn't need to exist.

Angel List the site is fine, but they really need some sort of verification or moderation. When I was looking for an internship there were a bunch of sketchy non-companies willing to pay me... $0. After I graduated it was easier to find real companies, but then it's just the same as other job sites with companies that get back to you months after applying. The design and look of the site comes off as more professiona…

ever try a recruitment agency?

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#14

Post by iLoch »

tedmiston wrote: post #11

> Meanwhile, AngelList is adding new ways for people to get into private-company investing. With some 600 startups expected to raise money through the website next year, AngelList said it’s creating a sort of index fund for young companies that will hold shares in 100 to 200 startups. Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This could be interesting. I wonder if it will be…

You may be interested in this: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2015-249.html

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#15

Post by andreasklinger »

tedmiston wrote: post #11

> Meanwhile, AngelList is adding new ways for people to get into private-company investing. With some 600 startups expected to raise money through the website next year, AngelList said it’s creating a sort of index fund for young companies that will hold shares in 100 to 200 startups. Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This could be interesting. I wonder if it will be…

An "index fund" for early stage fund is extremely interesting.

Given their transparency to investments it's a very good combination.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#16

Post by swanson »

> Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more.

This is really interesting to me, but I wish it were at a $10k level. That would be a no-brainer shift for me to move some money going into Vanguard into this, but I'm in that weird spot where I'm not rich enough to have $100k to toss around but am maxing out a Roth IRA and looking for more upside.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#17

Post by nivi »

tedmiston wrote: post #12
nivi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real story is 46% unrealized returns on 2013 syndicate investments. Which is in the upper top quartile of VC. And A-List, a premium recruiting product for busy companies. That complements our free recruiting product with 180K active candidates. Down markets are a good time to invest, but we're not anticipating one. http://angel.co/returns http://alist.co

Care to elaborate on the methodology for how you pick companies? Does AngelList act like its own VC internally?

The fund invests in a subset of syndicated deals. About half of them historically. The investment team consists of experienced investors including Naval (my co-founder). Details here https://angel.co/access-fund

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#18

Post by hkmurakami »

swanson wrote: post #16

> Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This is really interesting to me, but I wish it were at a $10k level. That would be a no-brainer shift for me to move some money going into Vanguard into this, but I'm in that weird spot where I'm not rich enough to have $100k to toss around but am maxing out a Roth IRA and looking for more upside.

Be careful to examine what's actually in the fund as your underlying. This isn't like buying the S&P500 where the sector exposure is well defined. One "startup index fund" can perform very disparately from another "startup index fund".

edit: If there's data that shows the performance of a basket of random 100 company samples being equivalent to any number of other random 100 company samples, then I am happy to admit that I am mistaken in this regard.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#19

Post by kapilkale »

swanson wrote: post #16

> Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This is really interesting to me, but I wish it were at a $10k level. That would be a no-brainer shift for me to move some money going into Vanguard into this, but I'm in that weird spot where I'm not rich enough to have $100k to toss around but am maxing out a Roth IRA and looking for more upside.

Agreed; we do this for regulatory reasons. We've got a limit on how many investors we can have per fund, and we can't sidestep that requirement by spinning up duplicate funds.

The high minimum investment is our equivalent of surge pricing.

We're working on it, though!

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#20

Post by hkmurakami »

tedmiston wrote: post #11

> Meanwhile, AngelList is adding new ways for people to get into private-company investing. With some 600 startups expected to raise money through the website next year, AngelList said it’s creating a sort of index fund for young companies that will hold shares in 100 to 200 startups. Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This could be interesting. I wonder if it will be…

You'd need to register the securities with the SEC of your going after non-accredited investors. I wonder if Angellist is going to go through that trouble.

One big advantage of only having accredited investors is that it allows you to not have to make such regulatory filings.

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