¶ … funding for entrepreneurs seeking seed capital to actualize their business ideas. The said funding sources in this case include but they are not limited to angel investors, bank loans, venture capitalist, friends and family, etc. In this text, I discuss angel investing. In so doing, I will largely concern myself with the pros and cons of the same. A few years ago, James Barnham turned down an offer from a group of angel investors to fund the launch of a device he had invented. At the time, Branham was seeking a total of £150, 000 from investors in a reality TV program, Dragon's Den. Barnham according to Singh (2009) terms his rejection of the offer the best decision in his life. The investors (dragons) had sought a significant stake in the venture in exchange for the seed capital. The term Dragon (in relation to the TV program) according to Rees-Mogg (2008) "means a rich person who invests in perhaps crazy, but also brilliant business ideas."

Pros of Angel Investing

To begin with, it is important to note that sometimes, funding can be hard to come by for startups that are not yet tested. In the words of Kaplan and Warren (2009), "angel investors are typically less demanding than venture capitalists and other institutional professional investors." In most cases, efforts to secure funds to either expand or grow a business could be...

Angel investors can help a budding entrepreneur overcome this hurdle. For instance, in Nova-Flo's case, most of the dragons were ready to invest in Barnham idea. In should be noted that at the time he was floating his idea to the investors, nobody really knew of how the invention would be received in the market. Thus in the final analysis, his was a risky idea to invest in. Nevertheless, some angel investors were ready to fund it.
Added value is yet another advantage of angel investing. During the program, Theo Paphitis promised to provide his "time, effort, knowledge, knowhow…" in addition to the £150,000 Barnham was seeking (NovaFlo, 2007). Successful in their own right, most angel investors have more than just cash to offer to an up and coming entrepreneur. They also provide their expertise as well as business contacts. This could be critical for a startup. When it comes to other sources of financing, i.e. bank loans; the entrepreneur is left to actualize his business idea on his own once funding is availed.

Next, according to Cobb and Johnson (2012), most business ventures in their early stages do not have huge capital demands. For instance, Barnham was in need of only £150,000 to turn his invention into a profitable undertaking. This is an amount that the…