What have a Turkish Chef, an Australian Pilot, a Physical Therapist in Oregon, A Submarine Operator in the Military, and DJs in the Bay Area in common?
They are all members of Hustle Fund’s Angel Squad, an investment community for new angel investors.
Hustle Fund, a new venture fund founded by ex-500 Startups partners, focuses on the early stages of investment. Elizabeth Yin The following are some examples of how to get started: Eric BahnLast September, the fund closed with capital commitments of $46.1 millions.
Angel Squad is a new venture that Hustle Fund launched in 2021 to make angel investing accessible for more people. Via Angel Squad, Hustle Fund has aimed to build an inclusive investor community, make minimum check sizes low and accessible (think as little as $1,000), provide “angel education,” and give investors a way to invest in startups alongside Hustle Fund.
What started out as an experiment of sorts has turned into Hustle Fund’s biggest revenue generator. Angel Squad now has over 1,500 active members. This is up from just 900 in September last year and more than 3x the number of people it had during the second quarter 2022.
“This is very counter to the narrative that angel interest has decayed. I think that is absolutely true in the tech ecosystem, but I think the curiosity of folks outside of tech has only increased,” he told TechCrunch. “They’re able to think more objectively, so they realize that now is a much better time to invest than during an overhyped bull run.”
Hustle Fund, through special purpose vehicles, has so far invested 23 million dollars in 65 transactions with members of the Squad, including Rupa, Karat, and Forage. Angel Squad currently accepts up to 250 Squad members per cohort. This group is made up of people from around the world. 75 % of group members reside outside of San Francisco Bay Area. 25 countries are also represented. 10% are women and 30% underrepresented. Singapore ranks third in the world for Angel Squad membership, only behind the Bay Area of New York City and New York City.
Image credits: Hustle Fund’s Angel Squad
One reason that Hustle Fund may be attractive to wannabe angels is that you don’t have to be accredited to become a member. Angel Squad is adamant that they welcome non-accredited Angels and even compensate them for the Series 65 exam. SEC regulations state only accredited investors can act as angels. The squad can be joined by members who pay a fee either quarterly or annually.
“Unlike some other angel groups or status-oriented groups, we really don’t want it to be like a mark of, ‘I’m in the club and you’re not’ or ‘I’m in this exclusive thing and you wish you could be in it,’” Nichols added. “It’s the opposite of that. We want it to illustrate that they are part of an inclusive community that’s open to everyone. . . . Hustle Fund has a mission that we strongly believe in. We want to empower more angel investors, just as Hustle Fund enables more entrepreneurs to launch companies. I think you start to see the second and third order impact of that over time as the founders and the investors start to become much more diverse in nature.”
To Bahn, Hustle Fund co-founder and general partner, Angel Squad is attempting to redefine what it means to be an angel investor.“For the longest time, an angel investor was just a rich white dude on Sand Hill Road and that was also just a VC. The same was true. What about the rest of us? There’s so many people who should be doing this and they don’t think they can. And they don’t know where to start,” he told TechCrunch. “We’ll show you where to start and give you access to invest alongside us.”
Nichols stated that the number one criteria for becoming a member is not being an “a-hole.” 1 criteria is that a person not be an “a-hole.”
For AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli, Angel Squad’s mission is very much in line with his organization’s.
“While the names sound familiar, there’s no relationship other than Angel Squad is a customer of AngelList. It’s not a competitive relationship,” he wrote via email. “We’ve built the platform for other VC funds to build their business off of.”
Angel Squad, in his view, is building “a captive network of angel investors and in some cases, opening up access for more people to invest in startups. Not many funds are actively doing this,” he added.