Best Angel Investor Communities 2024
Angel investing is a team sport. In the early 1990s, angels started teaming up in angel investor groups to make decisions on startup investments. There are over 250 active angel investor groups in the United States.
While angels want to build relationships with other individuals, one limiting factor of angel investor groups is that they invest as a collective rather than an individual.
In response, First Round Capital, a venture capital firm, launched an Angel Track designed to give angels the same community and teammates that an angel group provided but without the requirement to invest collectively. Since then, many communities have formed.
We’ll explore the best angel investor communities to join in 2024.
What is an Angel Investor Community?
An angel investor community is a group of angel investors that invest individually. Angel investors join communities to share deal flow, build relationships, and learn from other notable angel investors and venture capitalists.
Angel Investor Community vs. Angel Investor Group
The main difference between an angel investor community and an angel investor group is how they invest. An angel investor community lets members of the community make investment decisions individually. An angel investor group pools their money together and invests collectively.
Best Angel Investor Communities
The venture capital firm First Round Capital runs the First Round Angel Track. The program targets promising founders and operators with 5-15 investments who are eager to support founders with more than just a check.
The programming is hybrid with meetups in San Francisco and New York so people in the cohort can build relationships with each other. They cover topics like assessing teams, positioning, sizing markets, evaluating products, and more by bringing in notable speakers and Partners from the First Round Capital team to lead sessions.
Alumni include Max Mullen, Cristina Cordova, Charley Ma, Emily Kramer, Lenny Rachitsky, William Hockey, and Li Jin.
- cost: free
- # of members: 300
- competitiveness to get in: hard
- do you need to be accredited to participate: no
2. The Council
The Council is a small pre-seed and seed-stage fund that runs The Council Angel community. The program targets diverse, proven tech operators.
The programming consists of live pitch meetings with founders in San Francisco, New York, and over Zoom. Angels from the program have invested in Aster, Siena, Respell, Rezilient, Fishwife, and UpKepp.
Alumni include Daphra Holder, Lisel Welden, Courtney Buie Lipkin, Dawn Dobras, Liza Gurtin, Alexis Zhu, and Briana Case.
- cost: $1,000/year
- # of members: 100
- competitiveness to get in: medium
- do you need to be accredited to participate: no
The venture capital firm Hustle Fund runs Hustle Fund Angel Squad. The program targets beginner investors across any profession. They have taken people like doctors, so you do not need to be in tech to apply and get in.
Hustle Fund has a pretty good reputation as a pre-seed investor, but the cost of this program is fairly prohibitive, especially for beginner investors who may only make a couple of small investments annually.
The programming is remote. The Hustle Fund team leads various sessions, including reviewing deals together with Hustle Fund members.
Alumni include Adam Spector, Ian Logan, Trond Wuellner, Judy Abad, Maya Caddle, and Dalia Katan.
- cost: $3,500
- # of members: 1,500
- competitiveness to get in: easy
- do you need to be accredited to participate: no
The venture capital firm VITALIZE runs VITALIZE Angels. VITALIZE raised a $16 million seed-stage venture fund in 2018 and a $23 million fund II in 2023. VITALIZE Angels targets non-accredited investors and has partnered with the crowdfunding platform Wefunder to facilitate transactions.
VITALIZE Angels provide a library of content to their angels so that they can learn at their own pace. They also have an investors-only Slack group and host group calls with experts to review deals.
Alumni include Allison Byers, Thao Do, Todd Johnson, Bishoy Gaid, and Francisco García.
- cost: $149/quarter or $596/annually
- # of members: 800
- competitiveness to get in: easy
- do you need to be accredited to participate: no
