The 2022 Annual Report from Tech Coast Angels accommodates priceless insights for founders and buyers
Tech Coast Angels in an angel funding group primarily based in Los Angeles. With 410 angel buyers throughout 5 separate chapters, the group is likely one of the largest and most lively angel funding teams within the nation. I’ve been a member since 2010 and am on the manager committee of the LA chapter.
Because of the efforts of John Harbison, the group places out an annual report with extremely helpful information that highlights the standing of angel funding yearly. The complete report for 2022 is obtainable right here, however I’ve summarized the factors most fascinating to founders and buyers.
TCA 2022 Investments
In 2022, the group invested $15.4 million in 41 startups. Twenty of these investments had been follow-on rounds in current portfolio firms, and 21 had been new investments.Of the $15.4 million in funding, $5.2 million got here from group funds (4 chapters have member funds that pool investments) whereas $10.2M was from direct investments by members.
Takeaway for everybody: Regardless of the slowing financial system and challenges for late-stage startup investing, 2022 was a document yr for angel investments.
Takeaway for founders: While you’re pitching to angel teams, know who you’re pitching to. Is it a fund with pooled property, is it a group of people who make their very own investments, or is it a hybrid of each? Even inside TCA, the completely different chapters function in another way.
TCA-LA is an efficient instance of the hybrid mannequin. While you pitch to us, you’re pitching for funding each from our fund and people. We’ve got a $3M fund pooling member investments that sometimes invests $300K in 10 startups over the yr earlier than opening the subsequent fund. While you pitch to us, you’re pitching each for funding from the fund, and for funding from people within the group.
Funding Outcomes
The group had a document 13 exits in 2022, together with 5 with multiples between 10x and 34x.Investor returns since inception averaged a formidable IRR of 25.2percentOnly 3 exits out of 526 investments accounted for 74% of returns (primarily based on the earlier yr’s information).
Takeaway for buyers: 2022 was an awesome yr to be an angel investor, not less than the primary half of the yr. That is prone to be a peak for some time.
Takeaway for each buyers and founders: To get a superb return from angel investing, it’s important to hit that homerun — the 1 funding out of 100 with a 100x return. So angel buyers must search for that needle in a haystack with large upside potential quite than merely actually nice companies.
Word: take the 25% IRR with a grain of salt. Funds with cash out and in are straightforward to calculate IRR. Angel teams the place people make investments on their very own with out centralized reporting creates evaluation issues. If you wish to know what to anticipate as an investor, my private portfolio evaluation could also be extra indicative. My very own IRR has been 7.2%.
Angel Investments by Sector
Life sciences was the most important sector, accounting for 54% of the investments and 41% of the {dollars} invested.Software program was second with 22% of investments and 37% of {dollars}.Every part else was 24% of investments and 22% of {dollars} invested.
Takeaway for founders: Software program, which historically has been the most important sector for early-stage enterprise funding has been overtaken by life sciences.
Collectively, software program and life sciences account for 75% of funding. When you’re in these sectors, nice, angels want to make investments. If not, you’ll must work additional laborious to persuade angels that there’s a large enough market, aggressive moats, and high-multiple exits to supply the potential for a 100x return.
Angel Funding Time Horizons
Of the overall portfolio of 526 investments since 1997, there have been 106 exits, 141 shutdowns, and 279 firms nonetheless lively. Nevertheless, lots of the exits have been at multiples of 1.0 or much less, so not all exits are funding successes.Shutdowns sometimes are available in years 2–5. Profitable exits lengthy. Essentially the most profitable exits take 5–15 years.It takes 5 years to get your a reimbursement, 11 years for a 4x return, and 15 years to get to a 6x return.
Takeaway for buyers: Angel investing can have nice returns, however they take an extended, very long time. Be ready to attend.
Geographic Combine
TCA was based for angels in Los Angeles to put money into startups within the native ecosystem. Most areas have related angel teams targeted on their communities.
Pre-pandemic, screenings had been in-person. Almost all of the investments had been in native startups, with a small quantity of syndication from different teams.
Now, most screenings are on zoom or hybrid, and we’re in a position to hear pitches from throughout the nation, or often the world over.
Final yr, 57% of our investments had been in startups outdoors our house territory.
Takeaway for founders: You used to have to begin along with your native angel group and ask for syndication. Now you possibly can apply to angel teams anyplace. Nonetheless, be ready to reply the query: why are you making use of to us?
We’re not simply buyers. We wish to be concerned with the startups and in lots of instances, have one among our members on the board. It helps to have a superb motive why you’re making use of to a specific group. A referral from a member or a mentor is enough justification.
Startup Stage
45% of investments had been in pre-revenue startups
Takeaway for founders: For all these pre-revenue startups in search of funding to construct their merchandise and get to market, this statistic could be very encouraging.
Sadly, I believe it’s additionally extremely deceptive. 54% of investments had been in life science startups the place the important thing milestones are round FDA approval quite than buyer traction. I think nearly all of these pre-revenue investments had been in life sciences startups.
From my expertise, in the event you’re not in life sciences, angels sometimes make investments on the stage the place there’s preliminary buyer income. Regardless of the parable, it’s robust to get angels in search of monetary returns to take a position pre-revenue.
Valuation Tendencies
Median valuation elevated from $4.5M in 2017 to $6M in 2018, to $8M in 2021 to $10M in 2022.The median valuation on new investments shot as much as over $12M.
Takeaway for founders: angel teams have historically invested in early-stage firms with a valuation within the $6M — $8M vary. The start of 2022 was one thing of a bubble.
2022 was a bizarre yr. The primary half of the yr had absurd valuations in sizzling new startups. The second half of the yr was dominated by follow-on investments in struggling portfolio firms at low valuations. So we ended up with the unusual state of affairs the place new investments had increased valuations than follow-ons.
I anticipate 2023 to return to valuations nearer to the place we had been pre-pandemic.
