Founded in 1992 by Mike Rutterford and Barry Sealey, Archangels is considered to be the oldest, continuously operating business angel syndicate in the world, and is still going strong.  Since then it has invested in 89 early-stage Scottish companies contributing to the growth of the syndicate to become one of the leading angel investment organisations not just in Scotland, but the world.

Much has changed in the startup ecosystem since then.  We spoke to Archangels Joint Managing Director, David Ovens, about some of those big changes and the future opportunities and challenges facing angel investors and the companies they back.

Not-for-profit, Virgin StartUp, has announced the 14 ambitious British business founders that will join its new ‘get investment ready’ accelerator programme, which launches this week to help start-ups supercharge their first angel investment round.

Connectd, the leading platform for managing and growing relationships between startups, investors and advisors, has secured $2.6m in seed funding as it continues its expansion.

Angel Academe has made an investment into a female-founded tech business Dressipi.

South East Angels, Brighton’s most active business angel investment network, has launched a new initiative to tackle the diversity problem in venture capital. Future Angels will host frequent events that are open to anyone intrigued about angel investment so they can come along and meet like-minded people, learn, and grow their network.

The Flywheelers, a specialist comms agency for high-growth startups and scaleups, has published a new research report into what technology startup and scaleup founders can do to raise their profile and boost their attractiveness with investors.

More than 30 of Wales’ most successful female entrepreneurs and business leaders have united to form Women Angels of Wales (WAW),  

Par Equity invested £38m in early-stage technology businesses across the North of the UK in 2022, up from £25m in 2021, making it one of the most prominent and active technology investors in the region. The venture capital firm, which benefits from a panel of over 200 Angel investors, backed 27 companies in 2022, of which ten were new additions to the portfolio.

Edinburgh-based investment syndicate, Archangels, invested £13.4m during 2022 in some of Scotland’s most promising early-stage tech and life science companies. The total investment for 2022 among 11 businesses marks a 14% increase on Archangels’ investment activity in 2021 (11.8m).  New additions to the portfolio included tech firm Earth Blox who secured £1.5m funding from Archangels to expand its global reach and further develop its no-code Earth Observation (EO) cloud-based SaaS.

USA: The Angel Capital Association publishes the Angel Funders Report annually to increase awareness about angel investor activity and build a deeper understanding of the investing environment. 

EBAN Vice President Selma Prodanovic, considers why gender bias could mean investors are missing out on the best investment opportunities.

*US* The Angel Investor Foundation (AIF) has secured a $300,000 pledge to its Seed the Future capital campaign from the Payne Family, a name synonymous with angel investing. This is the second significant pledge from the Paynes and it brings their campaign contributions to more than half a million dollars.