Myth #5: Angel investing is for philanthropy or fun, not making money

Angel investing is about making money. VentureSouth itself is a private business (a SC LLC), not a government entity and not funded with public dollars. (Venture Carolina is a separate 501c3 non-profit that provides education for entrepreneurs and investors, funded by private donations.)

We get paid primarily from carried interest – that is, we take a share of the capital gains investors make from good investments. (A much smaller share than the IRS already takes incidentally; and aside from Trump coming after us “paper pushers…getting away with murder”.) We don’t get paid if investments lose money.

But aside from business structure and incentives, members know that the primary focus of our groups is attractive financial returns. Our motto is “Make Money. Have Fun. Do Good” – in that order.

Is that true more widely? Do angel investors make money from angel investing, or is their activity simply (even if inadvertently) philanthropic?

Certainly returns on deals vary; they vary over time, geography, investment strategy, and level of good luck. But there are studies that suggest that, done properly, angel investing is a legitimate “asset class” capable of generating positive returns. Our series of posts last year (starting here, then with more analysis here, here, here, and here) we outlined the overall conclusion that angel investing as an overall asset class beats public market investing by 3x.

Investors in our groups have made money investing locally too: overall, the 11 investment rounds that we have exited successfully have generated a 60% annual rate of return.

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