We provide empirical evidence of the post-investment performance and survivorship profile of angel-backed companies, filling a long-standing gap within the entrepreneurial finance literature. Using a unique database of 111 angel-backed companies that received angel investments between 2008 and 2012 and at least 3 years of post-investment financial data, we develop an innovative performance metric and show that the performance and the probability of survival of investee companies are positively affected by the presence of angel syndicates and the hands-on involvement of business angels, while they are negatively related to the intensity of angel monitoring and the time structure of equity provision. Our results are robust to several endogeneity tests and provide insights on the multifaceted contributions of angel investors to the performance and survival of new ventures.

This paper provides preliminary evidence on the effects of membership in a business angel network (BAN) on the investment decisions of the members. Using a novel dataset containing qualitative and quantitative information on 810 angel or angel-group backed investments in 619 companies by 330 unique business angels from 2008 to 2014, we show that BAN membership generates valuable information, networking, monitoring, and risk reduction effects, which ultimately affect the share of personal wealth committed by each angel investor and their equity stake in the targeted company. These results extend our knowledge of the investment behavior and characteristics of business angels, a relatively opaque funding source that is rapidly gaining prominence in support of new ventures and the development of the global economy.