Hi Frank,

A provocative question for you, but one that's emerged from talking with a lot of angels:

Why on earth should an individual angel ever choose to lead a round?

Here in the UK, it seems to be that all the angels left in the game are finally realising that their typical historic exposure to individual investments (say, $50K) is simply too high in anything other than outright boom-time. While it's nice to dream that any individual investment is going to turn out to be an Amazon or eBay, realistically the beta for all of them is just too high for anything less than a portfolio of (say) 12+ investments to make sense.

All of which means that a typical non-hyper-rich angel should put no more than $30K into any one investment target. But at that low level, is it ever really worth the hassle of leading a round?

What I'm finding is that I'm meeting a lot of (for want of a better phrase) "passenger angels" but no drivers: the worry is that, even though this actually makes perfectly rational sense, it yields a kind of "passenger investment paralysis" - everyone wants to invest a bit, but nobody wants to lead. At the same time, nobody wants to come in to a round unless there's a leader.

Surely an absence of round leaders could cripple the angel industry just as much as the unrealistic "10x" spectre has crippled the VC industry?

What do you think?

Cheers, ....Nick Pelling.... // Nanodome Ltd - Surbiton, Surrey, UK