Small Angel Checks Under 25K Drive Early Startup Funding

Small checks from angels are super useful or mostly useless?

Answer: the former, I believe - but let's dig into why.

Data below comes from nearly 30,000 SAFEs signed in 2025. They all went to funding small startups that were beginning their fundraising journeys.

You can see the major impact small checks have on small fundraises. Checks of under $25,000 make up more than 50% of all checks signed in "angel" rounds (less than $250,000 raised total).

But they only make up 14% of the actual money flowing into those rounds.

So it's not surprising that some folks think "look, small investors are nice I guess, but they make up such a minor percentage of my total capital needs. Bit of a waste of time"

To which I say - not so fast!

Small angels / small investors can be have outsize impact on your fundraise overall. They often:

• Put their personal network to work for you --> so $5K might turn into the intro that leads to $500K.

• Believe in you before anyone else does.

• Give honest advice divorced from financial worries (that $5K isn't going to make or break their future).

• Serve as network hubs for non-funding matters (hiring, product, etc).

Yes, you're going to need some bigger investors to join the round, no doubt.

But leave room for the smaller angels. You may be surprised how uncorrelated check size and actual value can be!