100 deals for more than 91.3 mil Euro invested, carried out by individuals or groups of Business Angels.
in addition, Business Angels participated in 116 deals in syndication with Venture Capital funds for a total invested amount of 812 mil Euro (referring to the sum of both BA and VC investments in the 116 deals)
Finally, Business Angels invested in 124 equity crowdfunding campaigns for a total of 32.5 (invested only by BA).
The Italian market of angel investing in 2021 completely recovers its pre-pandemic growth rate, achieving a +78% increase of the total invested amount including only individual Business Angels or groups of Business Angels (51.1 in 2020 and 52.7 in 2019).
The number of deals for this segment instead only grows by 4%, highlighting the increase in the average deal size (57% are above 500.000 euros).
In 2021 the three key factors taken into consideration by Business Angels (BA) during the evaluation process have been:
Market growth potential (38%)
Management team (22%)
Industrial sector and the exit strategy (both at 9%)
Additionally, 65% of Business Angels declare to take into consideration the ESG aspects and impact investing factors, 46% asks related questions to the team of founders starting from the initial 1-on-1 meetings and 36% defines the importance of these factors above 51 on a scale of 100, hence identifying them as deal breakers.
Among the Business angels only 14% of business angels are women, a value which saw a small increase since 2020 but is mostly stable over the years.
In 2021 72% of the monitored deals is in syndication, confirming the trend observed in the past years as the new main “investment model”, substituting the solo-angel investment approach.
The average Business Angel has at his disposal an endowment between 1 and 2 mil Euro of which between 10% and 15% dedicated to angel investing (a value slightly higher than in 2020), holding a portfolio of 8 companies (value increased since 2020).
Half of the respondents declare the intention to keep the percentage of capital invested as Business Angels the same level in future (39% in 2020), whereas only 36% want to increase it (55% in 2020). In 2021, Business Angels are optimistic about the perspectives of angel investing and aims at readjusting and stabilize their portfolio, following the strong increase in the investing activity during the last year.
The joint analysis of these results and the comparison with the 2020, confirms the underling growth of the Italian sector of angel investing and highlights the strong momentum of the sector and willingness to support the recovery after pandemics.