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The Ultimate Guide to Raising from Angel Investors in 2025
Insights from 4 Angel Investors with 90+ Combined Investments
Toby Egbuna
August 08, 2025
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Why This Guide Exists
Founders love the idea of raising from angels, but very few (including me) know how to do it. In some ways, raising money from angel investors is even more opaque than raising from VCs.
Despite creating content about every other aspect of startup funding—from loans, to grants, to venture capital—I’ve always left angel investing alone because my own experience with it was basically non-existent.
Until today!
My goal with Equity Shift is to help founders find the best source of funding for their companies, and angel investors definitely deserve to be part of that equation.
The Challenge
I polled y'all about the questions you have for angels, and that's what helped me structure this guide. The #1 question that I got was “How do I find angel investors?”
Unlike venture capital funds, which have websites, investment theses, and public portfolios, angels operate in the shadows. Someone could be a major angel investor who's deployed $5M across dozens of startups, and you'd only know about it through word of mouth.
This invisibility creates a real problem for founders. Angels represent an incredible source of capital, especially for companies raising $250-500K rounds. If you can't find them, you can't pitch them.
So I decided to go straight to the source.
The Solution
Over the past few weeks, I interviewed four active angel investors with a combined 90+ investments:
Rachel Wilson - Rachel is a strategic operator and changemaker with 10+ years of experience improving processes, securing $450K+ in grants, and scaling programs across healthcare and consumer brands. She specializes in operations, project management, and performance improvement, with a focus on equitable access and impact. |  |
Jed Ng - Jed is an angel investor and syndicate builder who turned his data-driven investing strategy into a multi-million dollar side hustle. He helps emerging angels grow LP bases and scale their syndicates, leveraging his experience leading the world’s largest API marketplace. |  |
Tony E. Kula - Tony is a serial entrepreneur with 30 years of experience founding and exiting companies in the communications space. Now based in France and Berlin, he supports startups as a mentor and angel investor with a human-first approach. |  |
Katie Dunn - Katie is an angel investor focused on underrepresented founders in CPG and tech, with a background in financing $10B+ in real estate deals. Since 2020, she’s helped founders raise $30M+ by combining investor psychology with pitch coaching and capital connections. |  |
I wanted to hear directly from them, and I've compiled highlights from my interviews to include them in this guide. For each section, you'll see 1-3 quotes from the investors that add some color to my commentary.
What surprised me most was how approachable they all seemed. These aren't VC partners in Patagonia vests; they're individuals who genuinely want to help founders succeed while making good returns.
This guide synthesizes everything I learned from these conversations. It's practical advice from people who've written the checks. While I may not have successfully risen from angels myself, I can share what successful angels want to see from founders.
Let's dive in.
1. Angel Investing 101
Before diving into how to find and pitch angels, it's essential to understand what makes angel investing different from venture capital. These differences will shape your entire fundraising strategy.
Check Sizes and Decision Speed
Angel investors write much smaller checks than traditional venture capitalists. You'd be hard-pressed to find a VC fund that invests less than $100K, but a typical angel investor will write checks somewhere between $5,000 and $25,000. A big-time angel might invest $100K, and a really big one could go up to $250K, but those are the exceptions.
Angels like to spread their investments out. If an angel has $100K to deploy over a year, she’s probably going to write ten $10K checks or twenty $5K checks rather than putting it all into one company.
This creates a fundamental math problem for founders. If you're trying to raise $500K entirely from angels, you'll need somewhere between 15 and 25 angels to say yes. That could be as many as 25 separate conversations, due diligence processes, and legal agreements.
Compare that to raising $500K from VCs. That could be one lead investor writing the entire check, or two VCs each contributing $250K.
The question becomes: where do you want to spend your time?
The upside is speed. You can secure an angel check in 1-2 weeks, whereas VCs might put you through 6-8 weeks of due diligence before writing a check. Angels make decisions faster because it's their personal money and they don't need investment committee approval.
When to Choose Angels Over VCs
The size of your round is the most significant factor in deciding between angels and VCs. Here's how I think about it:
Under $250K: Go after angels. Most VCs won't even look at rounds this small.
$250K to $500K: Consider a mix. Half from angels and half from a VC fund. This gives you the best of both worlds.
$500K and above: You'll likely need VC involvement, although angels can still be included.
Keep in mind that many VCs, even pre-seed ones, don't like being the only investor in a round. They prefer to follow on after a lead investor has already committed to funding, having taken ~50% of the round.
Beyond round size, there are other reasons to consider the angel route:
Less pressure and an opportunity to practice
Angel meetings should feel more like networking conversations than high-stakes pitches. This is great practice for when you do eventually pitch VCs. There's less formality and pressure, which can help you refine your story and get comfortable with the fundraising process.
Flexibility on terms
Angels are investors, which means they naturally look for favorable terms, but they're not going to demand board seats or spend weeks reviewing your SAFE agreements. The process is generally more straightforward and founder-friendly.
Expertise and involvement
Angel investors often like to be involved, and each typically has expertise in one specific area. You might have an angel who was a go-to-market expert at Uber, and that person becomes your default resource for growth questions. With VCs, you'd need to go through the fund to get connected to operators in their network with similar experience.
The trade-off is that you'll spend more time managing relationships with multiple individual investors rather than one leading VC partner. But for many founders, especially those raising smaller rounds or building capital-efficient businesses, that trade-off is worth it.
2. Discovery: How to Actually Find Angel Investors
Again, this was the #1 question I got from founders, and for good reason.
How to Find Them
According to the angels, there are three primary ways that they like to be contacted:
"First, I think a good number of angels are on LinkedIn, so it’s one of the best places to start your search. Look for people who mention in their descriptions that they’re investors. They might also list past experience as LPs or board members, especially if they’re part of a fund. A lot of fund managers invest personally as well.”
"I use this simple mental model I call the 70-20-10 rule. At the highest level, an investor’s thesis comes down to three things: industry vertical, stage, and geography. Seventy percent is the industry or vertical, 20% is geography, and 10% is stage. That’s the 70-20-10 rule. Basically, just look at someone’s LinkedIn. You can tell which industries they’ve worked in, and that’s 70% of the answer. You can see where they’ve lived or gone to school, and that gives you geography. That’s like 90% of what you need to know.”
Referrals from Your Network
"Most of the deals I’ve done came through warm intros—either a founder introduced me, or another angel said, ‘Hey, I’m investing in this startup, take a look.’ That always makes it a bit easier for me because there’s some level of validation.”
"If you're a founder and you have access to a network—whether through other founders or investors—do everything you can to get warm intros. They make all the difference.”
Local Angel Networking Events
"Another way to find investors is by attending specific angel events. For example, there's a big Black Angels Network event in Detroit every year, and it’s coming up soon. There are also global angel groups like TIE Angels, and others led by women and people of color who are focused on investing, either broadly or within their own communities.”
3. Outreach: Getting Angels to Take Your Meeting
Finding angels means nothing if you can’t craft a message that makes them want to take the meeting.
What Doesn't Work
Spray and pray
"Honestly, 60 to 70% of the outreach I get goes straight to the trash. It's usually because it's not personalized or completely outside my scope. If someone had just spent one minute looking at my profile, they’d know not to send it. A lot of it completely misses the mark.”
Think about the last time you got a cold email in your inbox about someone trying to give you new sales leads. When was the last time you responded to one of those? Angel investors are no different. If they open a message from you and can tell that all you did was swap out their name in your email template, they're probably not going to respond.
A sample cold email I got from a “GTM expert.” Would you reply to this? Probably not.
Note: I say probably because if the opportunity is good enough, an angel investor will respond. This goes back to the idea again that most of us are average founders, and therefore, we have to go above and beyond to raise money.
Messaging angels who don’t invest in your industry
"The first thing I tell every founder is: don’t waste your time if you don’t match my thesis. If your company isn’t a fit, I’m going to say no. A lot of founders reach out to anyone with 'investor' in their LinkedIn profile, and that’s a big mistake. It takes time and effort, and you’re basically just asking for a no—and you’ll hear enough of those already.”
In the defense of founders, it can be challenging to determine the industry an angel invests in, as many angels lack websites and don’t publicly disclose their investments on LinkedIn. With that being said, Jed's suggestion is a good one here. If you're considering reaching out to an angel, look at his background to see what companies and verticals he’s worked in. From there, you can make an educated guess that those are the types of companies that they are going to invest in because those are the ones that they're most knowledgeable about.
What Does Work
(Personalized) Cold Outreach
"Start with a strong hook—something that sets you apart and gets the investor’s attention. A big part of this is doing your research ahead of time. It sounds simple, but most people don’t do it. They just see 'investor' and reach out without thinking. Sure, you can go the spray-and-pray route, but I’d recommend leading with something compelling—like 'we just sold X, Y, and Z' or 'three-time exit founder'—anything that shows traction or a clear win. That’s what makes someone want to learn more.”
"I have absolutely no problem with someone reaching out over LinkedIn. What I don’t love is when it feels too transactional. It’s a bit like dating—you follow me, engage with my content, and then boom, right after I accept the connection request, there’s a message in my inbox. I prefer when it feels more like building a relationship—something that takes a bit of time.”
"The one cold meeting I took was because the person was incredibly specific—they clearly explained what they were doing, why it was a fit, and why I’d be a good fit for them. That level of clarity made all the difference.”
The opposite of "spray and pray" is personalization. This does not mean that you need to send a brand new email for every angel investor that you reach out to. But as you're crafting your outreach, leave a place to include some notes to let the angel know that you did do even 5 minutes of research before you reach out to them.
I’ve already written a guide to cold emailing investors that you can use to draft your cold outreach. The guide includes examples of good and bad outreach. While it was designed for cold emailing VCs, it might actually be better suited for angels since they’re more likely to open and respond to cold emails. You can read the guide to cold emailing angel investors here.
4. The Pitch: What Angels Evaluate
Once you've found angels and gotten their attention, you need to understand how they think and what they're looking for in your pitch.
What to Include in Your Pitch
"It’s less about the founder and more about the traction. No interest in awards or LOIs; I want to see real customers.”
"The earlier the stage, the more it’s about qualities like humbleness, coachability, resilience, and especially tenacity. Tenacity matters because things change. Businesses pivot, and founders need to adapt.”
"When it comes to your product or service, I’m looking for something that’s 10x better—not just 10% better. I also put a lot of weight on market size. The difference between a billion-dollar market and a trillion-dollar one is massive.”
From what I can tell, angels vary more than VCs in terms of what they're looking for, since they don’t have a set due diligence process to follow and LPs to present to. At the same time, because founders who raised from angels are doing so early, there are a couple of things that are always going to be important:
Team
Product/service
Big vision
Traction
These are the things that you want to highlight. Every founder should highlight the aspects of their pitch that make them most appealing. If your team has crazy deep experience in the industry you're building in, lead with that. If you’ve seen a surge in user signups since launching just 3 months ago, highlight that. While all 4 of these points need to be covered in your pitch (along with things like competition, business model, etc.), always lead with the things that make your startup an attractive investment.
Red Flags
"If someone jumps straight into the pitch without any small talk, it’s a turnoff. And if the pitch is full of buzzwords or the deck is crammed with tiny text that I have to squint to read, that’s not a good sign."
"Sometimes you meet a founder and the chemistry just isn’t there, or you start digging into the data and realize they haven’t followed through on what they promised.”
Starting with Katie's point and the first half of Tony’s, founders have to remember that angel investors are people, almost more so than venture capitalists, because they are investing their own money instead of someone else's. You should talk to angels the same way you’d speak to a respected mentor. Get to know them by asking about their weekend or the weather in their city. If you can do some research about them ahead of time, figure out what their hobbies are, and find a way to work that into the conversation. Build a relationship first because people are more likely to invest in you if they like you.
For Tony's second point, the takeaway is obvious: don't lie.
If you're only doing $100K in ARR and you have letters-of-intent for another $400K, don't say that you're doing $500K in ARR. Investors will always do their due diligence, and if they look into your documents and see that the numbers that you presented or the points in your story that you told are inaccurate, they're going to have trouble trusting you as a founder, which makes it easy for them to pass on the investment opportunity.
5. The Process: From First Meeting to Check in the Bank
The due diligence process with angels is fundamentally different from VCs, and understanding these differences can help you navigate it more effectively.
Most Angels Don't Have Formal DD Processes
"Don’t assume investors know how to do due diligence—because most don’t. If you asked a thousand investors how they approach it, you’d get a thousand different answers.”
This might sound concerning, but it's actually good news for founders. It means angels often make decisions based on gut feel, personal conviction, and their assessment of you as a founder, rather than extensive financial modeling or market analysis. While you should still be prepared with standard materials like financial projections and customer references, don't be surprised if some angels make decisions without requesting a full data room.
Angels Talk to Other Angels
"I try to look at a startup with four, six, even eight eyes. I’ll ask peers for their thoughts, ask for references, find out who else is investing and why. If someone I trust is involved, I might give them a quick call to understand their perspective.”
"You should always expect that angels are talking to other angels.”
This network effect is one of the most significant advantages of raising from angels. When one angel gets excited about your company, they often reach out to other angels in their network. A single positive conversation can lead to 3-4 additional checks as angels validate their interest with peers and bring in co-investors. This is why making a strong impression in each angel meeting matters beyond just that individual check. You're not just pitching one investor; you're potentially pitching their entire network.
The flip side is that negative impressions can also spread. Angels have long memories and talk to each other regularly, so being unprepared or unprofessional in one meeting can hurt your chances with other angels in that network.
Timeline Expectations
"In Germany, it sometimes takes 3 to 4 weeks. For YC companies, it’s been as quick as a week.”
Angels can move much faster than VCs because they don't have investment committees or extensive internal processes. While a VC might take 6-8 weeks to make a decision (4 weeks on the shortest end), angels can often give you an answer in 1-2 weeks. Some, like Tony mentioned with YC companies, can move even faster.
This speed advantage becomes significant when you're trying to create momentum in your round. Getting a few angel commitments quickly can help you build social proof for larger investors or close your round faster overall.
6. Post-Investment: Working with Your Angels
Getting the check is just the beginning. How you work with your angels can determine whether they become valuable long-term partners or just names on your cap table.
Communication and Updates
"I want to know if founders are taking time for themselves. I love seeing when they say, ‘We’re going on vacation,’ or ‘I went to a soccer game,’ or even, ‘I started seeing a therapist.’ For me, your business doesn’t have to be your whole life.”
Monthly updates are critical for maintaining angel relationships. I won’t talk too much about investor updates here as I’ve written about them before, but as you work to maintain relationships with angels who’ve invested in your company, include the following in your update:
KPIs
Business update
Highlights
Challenges
Focuses for the next month
Asks
Thanks
I did want to call attention to what Rachel highlighted. Good Angels want to see that you're taking care of yourself. Your business updates should include personal elements that show you're maintaining balance and not burning out. This builds confidence that you can sustain the long journey of building a company.
Leveraging Angels for Support
"I'm an operations person, so I pay close attention to culture, how founders treat their team, and how efficiently they run the business. I'm also a scientist, so I look for more than just innovation. I want to see how they plan to sustain it through the right processes, so they can keep building over time.”
As a founder, you're interviewing angels just as much as they're interviewing you. You should understand what each angel brings to the table beyond their check. If your back is against the wall and you need help, what can you call on each investor for? Tony, for example, brings operational expertise and process thinking to his portfolio companies.
The key is being intentional about tapping into that expertise when you need it, rather than treating all your angels the same way.
Key Takeaways: What Each Angel Wants You to Remember
Rachel Wilson: Build relationships early and explore all your funding options. Don't wait until you're actively raising to start connecting with angels.
Jed Ng: Build traction before you fundraise - capital won't solve your core problems. This is the worst fundraising environment in 20 years, so focus on getting real customers and proving your business model before asking for money.
Tony Kula: Be authentic and don't fundraise too early for experiments. Angels are investing their personal money, not donations. Ensure you have genuine validation and aren't merely asking them to fund your learning process.
Katie Dunn: Ensure there's investor-founder fit and develop relationships first. Just like dating, you need to build trust and connection before asking for commitment. Ensure the angel's thesis aligns with your company's goals and that you can genuinely support each other.
The Bottom Line
Angel investors aren't just smaller VC checks - they're often your first believers, early advisors, and the foundation of the network that will help you scale. The key is approaching them strategically: do your research, personalize your outreach, and focus on building relationships rather than just raising money.