Top Angel Investors – The Definitive List for 2021

Looking for the best angel investors? We’ve got a list of top 50 angels investors based on what matters—the success of their portfolio.

Some of the angels on this list such as Marc Andreessen and Chris Sacca are well-known, while others are sure to surprise you!

We also pulled together a ranking of the top angel investors for women and Black and Latinx founders.

Ready to jump in? Keep reading below!

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Top Angel Investors in the U.S. by Exit Rate

What do you think of when you think about the “top angel” investors? Perhaps you think about their Twitter followers, how many investments they’ve made, or whether they graced the cover of Forbes.

This list focused on the success rate of their portfolio, which we think is a much better indicator of who are the top angel investors. In this case, our list of top angel investors is based on the proportion of the startups in which they invested that had an exit, or “exit rate.”

What we’ve found is that many of the angel investors with the highest rate of portfolio startups that exit are less well-known and flying under the radar for many founders. On the other hand, many of the investors with the biggest personal brands and Twitter followers have rather mediocre exit rates.

And as a founder, don’t you want investors that have a history of helping startups succeed?

Admittedly, whether a startup in an angel’s portfolio had an exit is a factor of many things including the quality of their deal flow and ability to select promising startups.

Still, there is almost certainly a correlation between the investors’ exit rate and their ability to help portfolio startups succeed.

Top 50 Angel Investors with More than 20 Investments

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Exits	Exit Rate
1	Marc Andreessen	37	27	73.0%
2	Roger Ehrenberg	22	14	63.6%
3	Keith Rabois	57	35	61.4%
4	Mark Goines	23	14	60.9%
5	Kevin Rose	23	14	60.9%
6	Chris Sacca	34	20	58.8%
7	Ronald Conway	95	55	57.9%
8	Pejman Nozad	21	12	57.1%
9	Bob Pasker	31	17	54.8%
10	Kim Perell	22	12	54.5%
11	Ali Partovi	35	19	54.3%
12	Reid Hoffman	63	34	54.0%
13	Dave Morin	58	30	51.7%
14	Hadi Partovi	41	21	51.2%
15	Mitchell Kapor	53	27	50.9%
16	Gary Vaynerchuk	55	28	50.9%
17	David Tisch	87	44	50.6%
18	Allen Morgan	20	10	50.0%
19	Richard Chen	20	10	50.0%
20	Dave McClure	53	26	49.1%
21	Ullas Naik	42	20	47.6%
22	Timothy Ferriss	28	13	46.4%
23	Shervin Pishevar	33	15	45.5%
24	Adeyemi Ajao	32	14	43.8%
25	Matt Ocko	23	10	43.5%
26	Geoff Ralston	30	13	43.3%
27	Joshua Schachter	65	28	43.1%
28	John Maloney	31	13	41.9%
29	Auren Hoffman	72	30	41.7%
30	Don Dodge	24	10	41.7%
31	Josh James	24	10	41.7%
32	Andy Rankin	22	9	40.9%
33	Don Hutchison	22	9	40.9%
34	Raymond Tonsing	49	20	40.8%
35	Chris Dixon	27	11	40.7%
36	Erik Blachford	25	10	40.0%
37	Haroon Mokhtarzada	20	8	40.0%
38	Farzad (Zod) Nazem	63	25	39.7%
39	Dharmesh Shah	51	20	39.2%
40	Arjun Sethi	51	20	39.2%
41	Ram Shriram	23	9	39.1%
42	Matt Mullenweg	41	16	39.0%
43	Jeff Kearl	31	12	38.7%
44	Jeff Bezos	26	10	38.5%
45	Paul Sethi	34	13	38.2%
46	Thomas Lehrman	34	13	38.2%
47	Benjamin Ling	71	27	38.0%
48	Fritz Lanman	29	11	37.9%
49	Caterina Fake	24	9	37.5%
50	Ben Narasin	24	9	37.5%

Top Angel Investors See Two-Thirds of Their Startups Exit

The success rate of the top angels’ portfolios is simply breathtaking! Top-ranked angel investors see a full two-thirds of their investments reach some kind of an exit. That’s mind-boggling.

Marc Andreessen tops the list with a reported 73% of his angel investments reaching an exit. Wow.

Kim Perell is the Top Female Angel Investor

Unfortunately, our ranking for top angel investors is dominated by men, which I hope will change soon. Kim Perell is by far the best female investor according to the exit rate of her portfolio sitting in 10th place in our ranking with 54.5% of her portfolio angel investments reaching an exit, which is likewise jaw-dropping.

The second-highest ranked female investor on our list is Caterina Fake who is ranked 49th with 37.5% of her angel investments reaching an exit.

Top Angels Are Not Most Active

Beyond the astronomically high exit rate of the top angel investors, it’s also fascinating to note that the top angel investors are also not the most active. In fact, many of the top fifty angels on this list have made between twenty and fifty investments.

This makes sense since investors with a smaller portfolio can be more actively engaged with their startups to help ensure success. Also, it could be that these investors see a substantial number of startups but are a lot more selective in their investments.

The Most Active Angels Have Mediocre Exit Rates

One super interesting finding is that there seems to be a bit of an inverse correlation between the number of investments that these angel investors have made and the exit rate of their portfolio.

Those angels with more than a hundred investments tend to cluster at the bottom of the ranking, as seen below:

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Exits	Exit Rate
54	Paul Buchheit	159	57	35.8%
56	Scott Banister	134	47	35.1%
68	Naval Ravikant	159	51	32.1%
104	Fabrice Grinda	242	62	25.6%
105	Alexis Ohanian	137	35	25.5%
112	Esther Dyson	104	26	25.0%
142	Marc Benioff	143	29	20.3%
156	Daniel Curran	135	25	18.5%
173	Mark Cuban	150	23	15.3%
181	Louis Beryl	104	15	14.4%
193	Wei Guo	151	17	11.3%
200	Charlie Songhurst	119	12	10.1%
202	Jason Calacanis	372	36	9.7%
214	Edward Lando	116	8	6.9%

Of those angels with more than a hundred investments recorded on Crunchbase, Paul Buccheit, Scott Banister, and Naval Ravikant have the highest exit rates with about a third of their investments seeing an exit as indicated in the table above.

Top 20 Angel Investors with 10-20 Investments

We also took a look at angel investors with between 10 and 20 investments to see which ones had the highest investment rate.

The caveat here is that the investors on the following list have relatively few investments, so the correlation is undoubtedly more spurious.

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Exits	Exit Rate
1	Eric Hahn	11	8	72.7%
2	Alfred Lin	10	7	70.0%
3	Chris Yeh	13	8	61.5%
4	Kenny Van Zant	13	8	61.5%
5	Jack Abraham	13	8	61.5%
6	Jeff Clavier	18	11	61.1%
7	Konstantin Othmer	10	6	60.0%
8	Brad Garlinghouse	17	10	58.8%
9	Andy Liu	12	7	58.3%
10	Christopher Michel	12	7	58.3%
11	Josh Spear	12	7	58.3%
12	Yee Lee	14	8	57.1%
13	Matt Brezina	11	6	54.5%
14	David Arcara	11	6	54.5%
15	Joe Kraus	11	6	54.5%
16	Shawn Fanning	11	6	54.5%
17	Amitt Mahajan	13	7	53.8%
18	Aaron Iba	13	7	53.8%
19	Mike Hennessey	15	8	53.3%
20	Jared Kopf	17	9	52.9%

What jumps out at me the most about this list is how high the average exit rate is for those investors in this category. Once again, there could be a number of factors leading to this such as a high level of selectivity or their ability to actively support a smaller portfolio.

Top Angel Investors for Women and Diverse Founders

Female and multicultural founders are often judged with exceeding scrutiny, which seems to bear out among angel investors. Therefore, it’s important for underrepresented founders to find investors that are likely to evaluate their business fairly.

We used the ratio of these angels’ diversity investments to the total number of their investments, or “Diversity Investment Rate,” as a measure of their willingness to invest in women and diverse founders.

It’s worth noting that this data is from Crunchbase, which classifies “Diversity Investments” as those in startups founded or led by individuals that identify as Black or African American, Native America, Middle Eastern/North African, South Asia, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or Woman. While Black, Latinx, and female founders seem to be fairly accurately recorded in the dataset, other groups are clearly under-counted from a spot check that we performed.

Without further ado, here are the top angel investors for women and diverse founders.

Top 50 Angel Investors for Women and Diverse Founders

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate
1	Joanne Wilson	67	43	64.2%	13.4%
2	Jonathan Keidan	27	14	51.9%	18.5%
3	Marissa Mayer	26	13	50.0%	30.8%
4	Rick Webb	20	9	45.0%	35.0%
5	Kevin Hale	30	13	43.3%	13.3%
6	Andy Dunn	24	10	41.7%	16.7%
7	Ullas Naik	42	17	40.5%	47.6%
8	Eric Schmidt	36	14	38.9%	19.4%
9	Ellen Levy	26	10	38.5%	15.4%
10	Caterina Fake	24	8	33.3%	37.5%
11	Erik Moore	24	8	33.3%	33.3%
12	Michael Seibel	27	9	33.3%	22.2%
13	Charlie Cheever	39	13	33.3%	20.5%
14	Baron Davis	22	7	31.8%	22.7%
15	Mark Leslie	22	7	31.8%	18.2%
16	Clark Landry	77	24	31.2%	24.7%
17	Kal Vepuri	29	9	31.0%	24.1%
18	Wayne Chang	55	17	30.9%	23.6%
19	Jack Dorsey	23	7	30.4%	26.1%
20	Matthew Luckett	23	7	30.4%	26.1%
21	Alex Pattis	23	7	30.4%	4.3%
22	Asian Cowboy	79	24	30.4%	13.9%
23	Greg Castle	20	6	30.0%	25.0%
24	Ron Suber	20	6	30.0%	15.0%
25	Joi Ito	27	8	29.6%	33.3%
26	Paige Craig	44	13	29.5%	31.8%
27	Dave Morin	58	17	29.3%	51.7%
28	David Wu	24	7	29.2%	25.0%
29	Brian Lee	31	9	29.0%	25.8%
30	Howard Lindzon	28	8	28.6%	28.6%
31	Paul Graham	28	8	28.6%	28.6%
32	Julia Popowitz	21	6	28.6%	23.8%
33	Dave McClure	53	15	28.3%	49.1%
34	Elad Gil	78	22	28.2%	19.2%
35	Erik Blachford	25	7	28.0%	40.0%
36	Drew Houston	25	7	28.0%	16.0%
37	Kevin Lin	40	11	27.5%	2.5%
38	Immad Akhund	22	6	27.3%	9.1%
39	Andrew Mitchell	26	7	26.9%	30.8%
40	Semyon Dukach	26	7	26.9%	15.4%
41	Nasir Jones	30	8	26.7%	16.7%
42	Paul Sethi	34	9	26.5%	38.2%
43	Kevin Moore	84	22	26.2%	14.3%
44	Ram Shriram	23	6	26.1%	39.1%
45	Bradley C. Harrison	50	13	26.0%	32.0%
46	Nicolas Berggruen	27	7	25.9%	7.4%
47	Jason Finger	35	9	25.7%	22.9%
48	Eric Ries	43	11	25.6%	32.6%
49	Spencer Rascoff	47	12	25.5%	14.9%
50	Kevin Hartz	59	15	25.4%	30.5%

Joanne Wilson has made the highest proportion of diversity investment out of the 228 investors with at least 20 angel investments with 64.2% of her investments in startups founded or led by diverse founders.

The top three angels with the greatest proportion of diversity investments each had made more than half of their angel investments in women and founders of color as defined by Crunchbase.

Top Angel Investors for Diverse Founders with at Least a 30% Exit Rate

It’s also interesting to see which investors had both a high propensity for investing in diverse founders and a high proportion of portfolio startups that reached an exit.

Below are the top 20 angel investors with at least 30% of their startups reaching an exit sorted by their diversity investment rate.

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate
1	Marissa Mayer	26	13	50.0%	30.8%
2	Ullas Naik	42	17	40.5%	47.6%
3	Caterina Fake	24	8	33.3%	37.5%
4	Erik Moore	24	8	33.3%	33.3%
5	Rick Webb	20	9	45.0%	35.0%
6	Joi Ito	27	8	29.6%	33.3%
7	Paige Craig	44	13	29.5%	31.8%
8	Dave Morin	58	17	29.3%	51.7%
9	Dave McClure	53	15	28.3%	49.1%
10	Erik Blachford	25	7	28.0%	40.0%
11	Andrew Mitchell	26	7	26.9%	30.8%
12	Paul Sethi	34	9	26.5%	38.2%
13	Ram Shriram	23	6	26.1%	39.1%
14	Bradley C. Harrison	50	13	26.0%	32.0%
15	Eric Ries	43	11	25.6%	32.6%
16	Kevin Hartz	59	15	25.4%	30.5%
17	Reid Hoffman	63	16	25.4%	54.0%
18	Tikhon Bernstam	32	8	25.0%	34.4%
19	Mitchell Kapor	53	13	24.5%	50.9%
20	Georges Harik	37	9	24.3%	35.1%

Marissa Mayer is the undisputed queen of diversity-focused angel investors with 50% of her investments in startups led by diverse founders as well as an impressive 30.8% exit rate. Truly outstanding!

Top Angel Investors for Diverse Founders with 10-20 Investments

As mentioned above, we only looked at investors with at least 20 angel investments in the main diversity investment ranking. However, there are many angel investors with fewer investments whose portfolios seem to be mostly composed of startups led or founded by diverse founders.

One word of caution: with so few recorded investments, it could be that the table below might be off by a large degree with some investors.

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate
1	Terra Han	12	12	100.0%	0.0%
2	Anne Wojcicki	14	10	71.4%	0.0%
3	Paul Appelbaum	12	8	66.7%	16.7%
4	Julie McDermott	11	7	63.6%	9.1%
5	Jay Batson	10	6	60.0%	30.0%
6	Wendi Murdoch	15	9	60.0%	26.7%
7	Jessica Livingston	11	6	54.5%	27.3%
8	Halle Tecco	11	6	54.5%	9.1%
9	Shan-Lyn Ma	11	6	54.5%	0.0%
10	Christine Tsai	15	8	53.3%	26.7%
11	Steve Case	17	9	52.9%	29.4%
12	Terrence Rohan	19	10	52.6%	5.3%
13	Justin Rosenstein	10	5	50.0%	20.0%
14	Michael Antonov	10	5	50.0%	20.0%
15	Don Katz	10	5	50.0%	20.0%
16	Cliff Holekamp	16	8	50.0%	18.8%
17	Nick Green	10	5	50.0%	0.0%
18	Matt Caspari	10	5	50.0%	0.0%
19	Chris M. Willliams	17	8	47.1%	11.8%
20	Sky Dayton	15	7	46.7%	20.0%

Most Active Angel Investors Tend Not to Have a High Diversity Investment Rate

Perhaps the most interesting finding of our analysis is that those angels with the most angel investments seem to also have among the lowest diversity investment rates.

Out of about 900 investors in our data set, the most active angel investors cluster around the middle of the list with regard to their diversity investment rate. Incidentally, many of the most active angels also tend to have mediocre exit rates of their portfolio companies.

What does this mean for female founders and founders of color?

Perhaps the best investors for diverse founders are those with a moderate level of activity rather than the most active and often most well-known ones.

Rank	Angel Investor Name	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate
165	Louis Beryl	104	24	23.1%	14.4%
171	Daniel Curran	135	31	23.0%	18.5%
218	Mark Cuban	150	31	20.7%	15.3%
219	Wei Guo	151	31	20.5%	11.3%
224	Edward Lando	116	23	19.8%	6.9%
231	Jason Calacanis	372	72	19.4%	9.7%
238	Marc Benioff	143	27	18.9%	20.3%
266	Alexis Ohanian	137	23	16.8%	25.5%
283	Paul Buchheit	159	26	16.4%	35.8%
284	Esther Dyson	104	17	16.3%	25.0%
310	Scott Banister	134	20	14.9%	35.1%
349	Fabrice Grinda	242	32	13.2%	25.6%
364	Charlie Songhurst	119	14	11.8%	10.1%
429	Naval Ravikant	159	12	7.5%	32.1%

An Important Caveat on the Data Set

As with all data, there are likely some missed or inaccurate data points. All data for this analysis came from Crunchbase, and it seems accurate enough for comparative purposes.

However, I would not worry too much about whether the 26th ranked investor should really be in the 25th spot, for example.

Where I noticed the biggest gaps in data is in the diversity investments number. From a spot check, it seems that startups are pretty reliably coded as being led or founded by a woman, Black, or Latinx founder. However, it seems that East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian founders are often not recorded correctly.

In Conclusion

I have personally seen that startup founders are extraordinarily focused on the most active and popular angel investors.

It might be a mistake to put an outsized amount of effort in trying to reach these star angel investors. Angel investors in our data set have both mediocre exit rates of their portfolio companies and relatively low diversity investment rates.

More fruitful targets could be angel investors with moderate levels of activity (e.g. 20-50 investments) since they both seem to invest in startups that reach an exit as well as a greater diversity of founders.

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