Looking back at 2018: The AngelCentral Journey Thus Far

Within just a couple of months of setting up, we have become one of the fastest growing angel investment communities in Southeast Asia. Currently, we have >600 investors in our community and >80 paying members who support us and believe in our mission. We have also collaborated with organizations such as SGInnovate, A*STAR and Enterprise Singapore on joint initiatives to promote good practices in angel investing. AngelCentral has also been featured on various news media outlets, including Money 89.3FM, Straits Times, and e27!

A key priority for AngelCentral has always been to educate investors on good and effective practices. This year, we conducted a total of 5 workshops for our investors; 2 Angel Investing Workshops, 2 Legal Masterclasses, and 1 Deep Dive (into blockchain). Together, we have >100 angels who have attended (with many positive reviews!), and are glad to see many investors in our community are committed to learning and improving!

To be an effective angel investor, he/she would need to have constant access to quality deal flow. In 2018, we organised a total of 10 pitch days, featuring ~45 curated companies to >350 investors. These startups were selected and curated by our Partners who have reviewed ~300 startups in 2018 alone. So far, our featured startups have gone to raise ~$6m worth of investment commitments and ~$3.5m worth of actual funding; we expect these numbers to increase further in the coming months.

As part of our drive to create value for the broader investing community in the startup ecosystem, we collaborated with SGInnovate to organise two panel discussions where >160 investors attended in total. Our first session was held for our panelists to share about their past experiences in angel investing, and our second session was on the topic of investing in deep tech startups. We will be organising more of such events in the coming year, so do keep a lookout!

We are happy to share that the first two startups which AngelCentral managed to complete its syndicate deals for, TribeHired and Nimbus, are both doing very well and continuing to grow! TribeHired, which is Southeast Asia’s first IT Recruitment Talent Marketplace, has made over US$1million so far in 2018 and aims to achieve >US$1.5 million worth of revenue for 2019. Nimbus, which provides subscription and on-demand services for offices, has been gaining significant traction with customers such as Hyflux, Collision 8, and Found.us.

We are pleased to share with you that AngelCentral will be joining hands with the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) to conduct our most comprehensive course on Angel Investing ever! The course will take place over 5 half-day sessions, and Singaporeans / PRs are eligible for up to 90% off the course fees from SkillsFuture. Find out more here!

We are starting strong in the first month of 2019! We will be holding 2 workshops in the month of January. The first workshop will be on the topic of the fundamentals of angel investing conducted by Der Shing and Shao-Ning, who will be using their personal portfolio to share the lessons and experiences they have gathered thus far. Our second workshop will be a deep dive into the hardware space, and the trainer will be Professor Dr Neo Kok Beng, an active angel investor who teaches design thinking, technology commercialisation and innovation in the National University of Singapore. Tickets are limited, so do sign up as soon as you can!

By the end of Q1 2019, we will be launching a revamped website and platform, bringing you access to 50-70 more startups for angel investment evaluation per year, along with a comprehensive selection of online angel investing resources. This is something we have been working for the past year, and our goal for this is to bridge our members with even more startups on top of the usual 40-50 pitching companies per year.