Angel Round Sizes Head to Earth

Valuations of angel-funded companies rose, but funding round sizes dropped some in the first half of the year.

Those were some of the findings from The Halo Report, a biannual survey of U.S. angel investments published today. The report, which covers the first half of this year, looks at details for 342 deals that drew $468 million of investment capital.

Overall, the study did not unearth any dramatic changes in the angel funding environment.  It found that median pre-money valuations for angel-backed Series A deals rose a bit – to 2.7 million – in the twelve month period ending in the second quarter. That was up from $2.5 million in a comparable period ending the prior quarter.

The median round size, by comparison, dropped some from the heights reached in 2011, dipping back to 2010 levels.  For the first half of this year, the median angel round size was $550,000 compared to $700,000 a year earlier.

Internet deals also grew in popularity, taking in just over a third of angel money invested in the first half of the year. Just over a quarter of angel investment dollars went to healthcare deals.

Deal distribution was more evenly geographically dispersed for angel deals then what one sees in the venture industry, where capital is concentrated in California and the Northeast. Angels backed an almost equal number of deals in California and the Great Plains region, for instance. (Though California still dominated in terms of dollars raised.) New England and the Southeast also captured an almost equal portion of deals.

The Halo Report is put together by the Angel Resource Institute (ARI), Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and CB Insights.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.