Those of us who teach or lecture
regularly are often hard-pressed to identify and explain the key components of the startup
ecosystem. Undaunted, one analyst has
organized them into what he calls the Periodic Table of Tech.
“With the explosion of players (both
investors and acquirers) in tech today, we’re often asked by those trying to
navigate the space who they should know. We’ve tried to answer that
question with prior analyses of various groups (angels, micro-VCs, corporate VCs
and VCs) using our data on investor quality, brand, and deal activity,” says
Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights.
“Today, we’re releasing our
first-ever Periodic Table of Tech which
aggregates many of those prior quantitative analyses into one unified view highlighting
the 118 most important investors and acquirers in tech.”
Naturally, our eyes were drawn to the angels. The top angel groups listed are Tech Coast, Boston Harbor, Golden Seeds, New York, Sand Hill, and Atlanta. When asked how he selected them, Sanway referred us to his earlier report on top angel groups.
One issue remains. Why is a group such as Golden Seeds, that manages a substantial fund, listed as an angel group rather than as a Micro VC?
“Golden Seeds is a bit of a hybrid,
says Sanwal. “They're a fund but also an angel group, i.e. they report
via Halo Report. There are some folks like them; i.e. 500 Startups is
both an accelerator and micro VC. We had
to pick one.”
For perspective, Golden Seeds raised $26.1 Million back in 2011 for its
Fund II.
Picking individual angels is even more difficult. According to reports from the UNH Center for Venture Research, there are roughly 250,000 active angels in the US this year. The Periodic Table lists 12, only one of whom we have met in person. For this selection, Sanwal refers us to his report on top angels. More analysis could be done here.
CBInsights is a National Science Foundation-backed data-as-a-service firm
that collects information on private companies and their investors and
acquirers. CB Insights data and technology is used by firms to make
better marketing, procurement, lending, acquisition and equity investment decisions
and to gather data-driven market and competitive intelligence. The firm's
data is regularly cited by leading media publications including the New York
Times, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Fast Company among others.
