Although it usually takes a lot more than a cool-looking product to spur investors to back a company, research has shown that soft data like an attractive entrepreneur (provided they are men) accent and just a “gut feeling” can sway investors’ decisions. But it’s between hard data like a management team’s track record, business model and financials and the soft data that some useful insights could be gleaned. That’s the intent behind a new survey of angel investors between Wharton Entrepreneurship and the Angel Capital Association.
In a phone interview with Laura Huang, Wharton assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship who is leading the benchmark survey, she talked about her investment research and offered some details on what she hoped to learn from the survey findings.
“We are interested in the known unknowns,” Huang said. “We are not trying to test a hypothesis. We are hoping we will get a lot more richness in terms of how angels behave.” For example, Huang said it would be interesting to see how many investments angels make. Do they invest alone or with a syndicate? How many women and minority angel investors are there in the U.S.? Which industries, including healthcare, do they invest? The survey will also explore their career path. She noted that she and her colleagues are seeing a lot more activity by angel investors in healthcare.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
Huang said it expects the data-collection process to take a couple of months and said the plan is to publish findings in June. Hopefully, the results will identify some interesting areas to do follow-up research.
She noted that “entrepreneurship is a different animal than it was even five years ago.” Accelerators have helped support a lot more startups, which has helped job growth, but there is a downside to that too.
“The thing with accelerators is there’s still not a lot of proof they are helping in any real way…If you go to a mediocre accelerator, you will get mediocre advice.”
Photo: Flickr user Véronique Debord-Lazaro
