Angel Investment Criteria

John Bradley "JJ" Jackson

14 Oct 2025 • 1 min read

As some of you know, I am one of the founders of Titan Angels* (www.titanangels.com) which is an early stage angel (i.e. seed) fund. I am frequently asked about the typical angel investor criteria for early stage startup investing. My experience is that individual investors may have a pet criterion, but generally investors have the same basic checklist.

In no particular order are the criteria that we use at Titan Angels. With that said, I have yet to hear a pitch from a startup that checked all the boxes. All have been imperfect. This requires investor judgement which explains the risk that an investor must tolerate.

Here you go:

Needs a founding team rather than a single founder
Has a competitive advantage
Has a viable business model
Potential for scaling and fast growth in a large, growing market
Founder/s demonstrate strong character and must be coach-able
Awareness that an exit plan is required for outside investor participation
Founder/s must be willing to give up some control to outside investors
Able to protect market share (Intellectual Property preferred)
Talented founder/s with industry experience preferred
Ability to pitch the business concept (harder than it sounds)
Startup preferred local (there is no substitute for F2F contact)
Measurable sales traction (pre-revenue is sometimes OK)
Realistic valuation (no blue sky please)
Prudent use of funds requested
Needs early validation of demand (if pre-revenue)
Shared vision and alignment with investor values
Clear understanding of risks and challenges
Lead investor preferred (most investors prefer to not lead)

I did my best to write this in plain English and not in investor-speak. If something is unclear, let me know in the comments.

*Unaffiliated with Cal State Fullerton