Know about-Angel Investor & Angel Investing..---

An angel investor (known as a business angel or informal investor in Europe), is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. A small but increasing number of angel investors organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share research and pool their investment capital.

Angels typically invest their own funds, unlike venture capitalists, who manage the pooled money of others in a professionally-managed fund.Funding estimates vary, but usually range from $150,000 to $1.5 million. Angel financing, while more readily available than venture financing, is still extremely difficult to raise.

Angel investments bear extremely high risk and are usually subject to dilution from future investment rounds. As such, they require a very high return on investment.

Today's new crop of young technology entrepreneurs sees a ray of hope. Domestic markets getting to be large enough to support innovation, the technical innovation needed is something they feel they can master. But they are getting stuck at the first step which is finding the capital for their start-up ventures.

In the United States, that haven of innovation and entrepreneurship, this financing need is filled by a group called "angel investors".  The capital such angel investors need to put in is in the Rs 1-2 million range. This will help the young entrepreneur take the first step, set up shop, make a working prototype of his new product and find the first few customers. This capital will help him focus on the crucial product development stage and not get distracted by having to earn revenue from unrelated activities merely to meet payroll.

There are already a number of such angel investors operating in India but the existing numbers are too little for the scale of innovation needed or possible in India today. The Center for Venture Research estimates that there are about 200,000 angel investors in the United States. By this count, India needs at least 10,000 of them.

Three defining characteristics of Angels and Angel investing:
>	Support entrepreneurs at earliest stage
>	Invest their own money
>	Actively mentor company