HN Explorer

Angel investors on Twitter and Facebook (launch.is)

45 points by jasonmcalacanis ↗ HN
We just made this list of every angel investor we could find AND their investments twitter accounts.

there is no better way to court an angel investor then stalking them on twitter :-) let me know if we missed any and we will add.

25 comments

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staunch
Awesome list. Bookmarked. It must have taken some work to put this together. Thanks.
paulmwatson1
Good lord, not a single one in the Republic of Ireland, the future Silicon Valley of Europe or so say our "smart economy" pushing government. Hopefully we can rectify that in 2011.
patrickk
There's actually quite a bit of funding available for Irish startups, if you dig behind the gloomy newspaper headlines.

Here's a few examples:

http://siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/item/19654-top-start-up...

http://siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/item/19645-endeavour-20...

=> our own YC clone run by Jerry Kennelly of Stockbyte, with pitches to top investors in Dublin, London and Silicon Valley.

http://siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/item/19067-silicon-vall...

What we need is to collectively get off our asses, stop blaming the government for everything, encourage successful entrepreneurs to run seed programs, and to make serious incentives to capture ambitious smart graduates from India, China and the like. Abtran, a startup company a few years ago in Cork, now employs over 1000 people for example. Granted, it's only a call centre, but it shows what can be done.

phlux
Interesting that Abrams invested in Lotus Vodka...

Did they make it through their FDA struggle? The FDA was shutting them down due to the caffeine they had in the drink, even though a vodka redbull had N times the caffeine that Lotus had.

zackattack
this would be way better as a twitter list, so you could watch the stream and reach out to people who seem smart/interesting/"resonate with you"
joshu
Not sure why the twitter account of a startup is better that it's URL.

Kinda sad that the only two startups I am listed for are things I founded, and didn't invest in.

spullara
It only has my most recent investment. Probably should be a wiki.
jdp23
For me Twitter is usually much better for an initial contact. So it's an incredibly valuable resource.
jasonmcalacanis
odd... please email details and we will update. jason@launch.is

best jcal

benologist
Listing the twitter accounts instead of websites suck ... twitter is where you go to communicate not see what they do.
adrianwaj
The biggest issue I've found with angels and especially super angels is that their fingers are in so many pies, that very often they're already fingering the same (or a very similar) type of pie that you're offering. You'd want to know exactly what they have a stake in before making an approach, yet often that information is hard to find (or purposely concealed.)

Overlapping feature sets. Conflicts of interest. Picking the winners. Contrived rejections. Leaks. Angelgates. Portfolio loading. Brain picking.

Buyer beware in my view.

gyardley
In my experience, investors are pretty up-front about potential conflicts, and anything you'd possibly share with them isn't going to hurt your business. If you want to raise money, paranoia about angels isn't the way to go about it.
adrianwaj
Why take (waste) your time talking to an investor if they've already invested in something the same or very similar?

Open question: which investors have websites, as linked from their twitter accounts, that display all their investments?

Does Y Combinator?

gyardley
Because often small investors aren't involved in the day-to-day of their portfolio, don't have information rights, and can invest without any real conflict?

Hell, the firm who put $6MM into our Series B is also the lead investor in our biggest competitor. That's a legitimate conflict. Worrying about an angel bringing $50K to the table is a waste of time - if it's really an issue, they'll be the ones to raise it.

jasonmcalacanis
I'v stopped people mid-pitch due to the fact that they are building something exactly like Blippy, Gowalla, Signpost, Chartbeat and Thumbtack (to name a few).

They always appreciate it, and in fact I've some say "I know, but can i pitch you anyway just to get feedback?"

In those case I say "sure, but please don't tell me anything that's not obvious or public, because although I would never share what you tell me with an existing investment, I wouldn't want to have that appearance out there."

adrianwaj
Good for you.

I'd love to see a private equity database that tracks venture investments by angels or super angels. Maybe something automated that monitors outgoing links on portfolio pages, or something like that.

joshu
I usually ask for a short summary and then tell them about possible conflicts.

A surprising number of entrepreneurs either think their idea is so special that a one-liner will give it away OR want to meet without giving a summer. Hmph.

adrianwaj
OK, let me send you a summary once we launch shortly.
brianbreslin
Blech only one in Florida? That can't be right. If it is it's highly discouraging
jasonmcalacanis
this is a 1.0 list with 300+ angels... we hope folks will give us additions.

however, keep in mind that 90% of businesses in Florida are scams (really, look it up).

quellhorst
Look it up where? I can't find anything that mentions this.
brianbreslin
I am curious if you have any supporting evidence to this? I'm not refuting it (though it seems absurd, but I assumed your statement was a sarcastic generslization) as I didnt bother to research this.