Quora Answer: What is the Range of Capital Expected from an Angel Investor versus Venture Capital?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is the range of capital you can expect from an angel investor versus venture capital?” 

There is no clearly defined range.  An angel investor is a wealthy private investor who finances small ventures, through their own net worth, in exchange for equity.  A venture capital firm does the exact same thing, on a larger scale, because they have access to an investment fund created for that exact purpose. 

Angel investors normally start in the low tens of thousands range, and may be part of different levels of seed funding in a promising enterprise, to maintain the size of their equity stake.  There are exceptionally wealthy individuals who are able to put in tens of millions but that is rare.  Even when an angel investor has that level of wealth, they prefer to diversify and out money into early stages of startups.  They make most their money in the exits. 

Venture capital, on the other hand, may start as low as angel investors, but the largest ones are more than capable of putting in hundreds of millions into the right unicorns.  Generally, venture capital comes in where angel investors leave off.  There may be a light overlap in the early stages of seed funding, in series A or B.  Most angel investors exit or partial exit to venture capital.