This Week In Angel Investing – Week 23
This week saw the usual magnificence from Trend Watching with a commentary on the growing trend that is “Mass Mingling”. It puts into spotlight the view when the internet begun that people would live their lives fixed to their computer device of choice and creating an almost exclusive online community. What those ‘experts’ didn’t foresee were companies such as Angels Den using the internet to facilitate real world events. The Trend Watching piece is well worth a read and if you didn’t appreciate the real power of SpeedFunding before, you may now.
If you needed a kick up the backside regarding your own venture, but you still have the view that you needed 2,000 employees to have a company worth buying, then think again. Twitter has bought Smallthought Systems which only has five employees.
And there’s good news, well sort of. We reported that Business Investment was set to crash in 2009, which it basically did, 2010 is looking a great deal better – that’s if you’re looking at the number of deals being reported on the Venture Beat website. From having our own ears close to the ground we can definitely feel a strong growth in interest and connections.
If you needed any reason to go through due-diligence, then read this article entitled “the startup con man” from Venture Beat.
Another growing trend which was given some welcome coverage in the traditional media was the growing power of women in the financial world in general and angel investment sector in particular. The first National Women’s Angel Day on Wednesday was marked by a Women in Investing Lunch in Kensington, Coffee & Cakes in Edinburgh, Leeds and Bristol as well as a Masterclass on Angel Investing at One Alfred Place and the news that 5% of Angel Investors are women. With groups such as Angels Lounge we’re confident that this number will continue to grow.
Our Angel Investment network in Singapore is going from strength to strength with its success surprising even our eternally optimistic co-founder Bill Morrow and country manger Barry Jones. For those interested, we have free funding clinics in Singapore on 15th, 22nd and 30th of June – find out more here.
Let’s see what next week is like in the world of funding start ups!
