AngelList, a service that matches early stage startups with investors, is raising a big round of financing at a valuation that multiple sources say will top $150 million. Investors may include Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, among others, say our sources. This will be the company’s first outside financing.
More recently, AngelList has started to actually be a part of the transaction itself, facilitating deals with legal documents. This includes standard term sheets, automatically generated closing documents, and tools to manage the process including electronic signatures, managing wire information, generating PDFs, and more. Earlier thus year, AngelList launched a way for startups to create a more interactive pitch deck. 500 Startups started using AngelList for applications for its incubator.
Recruiting is also an area where AngelList is thriving.
My Two Cents
Sometimes I really have blind spot. For example, I see the great value of Angel List as a service and an incredibly powerful tool. I see that. What I don't see is the independent value of Angellist at $150 million plus. This investment is really either visionary or nuts. Anyone care to help enlighten me.
So according to Leena Rao's article, Angellist offers the following:||1. becoming part of the deal itself as a facilitator or finder - which has been ridiculed by Arrington and others as pathetic and low rent;||2. helping close deals with automatic generation of legal documents. These doc's have been open sourced by numerous accelerators and law firms and doesn't Legal Zoom serve this market better;||3. Pitch Deck creation - paying somebody to write your plan or pitch deck is also a red flag||3. Recruiting - this seems to be the 1 area where I believe that Angellist can thrive and protect, but is it worth $150 million plus (NOW) and the order of magnitude that it needs to become to produce an ROI.
Remember -- this is Angellist, not VC list or Private Equity List. Even in light of the JOBS Act, I just don't get it.
