The story
Founded by Naval Ravikant in 2010.1
History
AngelList was founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi. Using the traction from the Venture Hack blog on entrepreneur financing, Naval and Babak started a list of 25 investors with whom they would share interesting companies to invest in. They announced the list as "AngelList" in 2010, with the subscription of 50 angel investors who intended to invest US$80 million that year.
History
AngelList launched Jobs – its recruiting portal – in 2012.
In late 2012, AngelList launched a portal for accelerators and incubators to accept and manage applications from startups to their programs. At opening, AngelList accepted applications for 500 Startups, TechStars Boston, and AngelPad. Other accelerators, like Rock Health, accept applications exclusively through AngelList.
In 2013, AngelList received a no-action letter from the SEC, allowing the operations of its Syndicates platform. FundersClub also received such a letter in the same period. AngelList Syndicates was noted as one of the most important innovations in the venture capital and angel investment industries, getting momentum with several well-known figures in the tech community creating syndicates, including Jason Calacanis, Scott Banister, Tim Ferriss, Gil Penchina, Scott and Cyan Banister, Fabrice Grinda, Elad Gil and more. In 2017, AngelList had 4,400 investors operating across 165 syndicates.
In March 2014, AngelList launched Maiden Lane, a first online venture fund for investing in syndicated deals. It was launched with more than $25 million in funding from a variety of investors. In 2014, women represented only 7.4% of all AngelList investors.
In October 2015, AngelList announced a deal with a Chinese third-largest private equity firm CSC (China Science & Merchants Investment Management Group) for establishing a new $400 million fund for early-stage startup investments. According to The Wall Street Journal, the deal became the "largest single pool of funds devoted to early-stage startups — ever," and also the "largest-ever single investment by a Chinese private-equity firm in a U.S. fund."
Prior to the deal, the Wall Street Journal said AngelList "had raised $205 million from all sources, including $43 million from institutional investors."
In July 2016, AngelList launched Republic - a spinoff addressing the democratization of startup equity crowdfunding with non-accredited investors.
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In November 2016, AngelList acquired Product Hunt for $20 million. Naval Ravikant planned to use Product Hunt to further "[help] companies find their early customers."
In October 2017, CoinList – initial coin offering services for startups and accredited investors – spun off from AngelList. At the end of 2017 AngelList had profiles of over 70,000 startups.
In early 2018, AngelList expanded its Syndicates program to India.
In 2019, AngelList started offering infrastructure for fund management within the private equity industry.
In 2020, AngelList launched rolling funds, an investment vehicle that raises money through a quarterly subscription from interested investors. In the same year, AngelList India's CEO, Utsav Somani, launched a $5 million micro-fund, iSeed SEA, to invest in startups located in Southeast Asia.
In 2021, AngelList raised $25 million for the AngelList Early Stage Quant Fund, an investment vehicle which plans to invest $250,000 in over 100 companies.
In March 2022, AngelList closed its $100 million Series B led by Tiger Global. One month later, the company raised another bridge round of $44 million.
In November 2022, AngelList Talent was spun out as a separate company and rebranded as Wellfound.
In June 2023, AngelList announced its acquisition of Nova, an investor management software for institutional private funds. The purchase supported CEO Avlok Kohli's initiative to expand AngelList's customer base to include private equity.
From Wikipedia’s article on AngelList, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3