Business 21C - Published by UTS Business

Today Business21c Weekly talks with Richard Dale, co-founder and director of Sydney Angels, and Chris O’Brien, founder of angel-funded business Hungry Giant about the angel investment process: What is it? Who are these angels? What is in it for them? Who should approach angels, and how?

Angels are private individuals who are prepared to make an investment in early stage companies – companies that often have yet to earn their first cent in revenue – because they believe in the idea and are willing to back the founder. Angels are individuals, often with a successful entrepreneurial background, who make a personal decision to invest their own money.

Set up in 2008, Sydney Angels is an invitation-only club of members who are interested in making angel investments, and who have the capacity to invest some $50,000 a year. Investors can be either hands-on, keen to roll up their sleeves and help make their investments work, or they can be passive and sit back and watch.

According to the Australian Association of Angel Investors, some 16,100 angel investors have invested some $1.69 billion in some 5,000 early stage ventures in Australia over the last few decades. That represents a leveraged investment (when you take into account the money companies have been able to borrow on the back of their angel investment) of over $5 billion in Australian technology, and some 35,000 jobs fueled by angel investment.

One of them was Chris O’Brien’s Hungry Giant. Chris is with us in the studio talking about how the angel investment process has played a huge part in taking his business idea from messing around with bits of metal and a welder, to a growing business that has turned landfill into a saleable commodity – and given him a sustainable business with national reach.

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