Quora Answer: How Many Angel Investors Should You Have?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How many angel investors should you have?”

Generally, the lower the number the better, but if you can help it, never have only one, and not more than around three or four.  Whilst having one investor makes things easy, it also means you are tied to that one investor, and that is dangerous.  It means one person has undue influence on the management of the business.  If you have at least two, you can play one against the other, should the circumstances require it. 

As a rule of thumb, you should have an investor per fundraising phase, since different groups of investors have differing mandates, which may preclude an existing investor from being involved in a further fundraising phase, or preclude a preferred investor from getting involved earlier.  If we take it as pre-seed, series A and series B, that would be at least three.