Any “accredited investor” in the US or internationally can invest in the Arena Ventures Syndicate on AngelList.

An individual in the U.S. is said to be accredited if he/she has $200k or more in income for the past 2 years (or $300k with a spouse), with the expectation of similar earnings this year; or $1m in net assets (assets minus debts). Learn more on the SEC website.

We invest in technology startups during their seed stage - typically their first or second round of funding. It is the earliest and riskiest point to invest in startups but also the most lucrative for those that go on to become big successes. As a venture capital firm, we can only invest in companies we believe have the potential to reach valuations in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in the decade ahead.

Arena Ventures considers a wide variety of software-based companies to invest in, from education startups to finance startups to marketplaces for food delivery. We typically do not invest in companies building physical products or centered on creating ads or media content, however.

Read about our companies and investment style to learn more.

The amount you commit to investing in tech startups depends heavily on your wealth and your investment goals. You should consult a personal financial advisor for guidance. These investments are “high risk, high reward” - they should not constitute a dominant proportion of your net worth and are not appropriate for everyone. You should be prepared to lose all of your money on some investments: that’s just the nature of the game.

Through an AngelList Syndicate you can invest as little as $1,000 in a deal, however, and you are never required to participate in any investments - it’s always up to you. Most of our backers invest $5-50k in each deal they participate in.

There’s no expectation that you work directly with a company you invest in since the Arena Ventures team are the direct investors and as a venture firm our full-time team already provides a lot of support to our entrepreneurs.

We will occasionally send along requests from startups you’ve invested in, however, in case you do want to help promote them, recommend people for their job openings, or test new product features.

Funded Backers get access to our deals before everyone else in so that they’re guaranteed their spot in the deal (with a few rare exceptions).

When you create your AngelList investor account and “back” the Arena Ventures Syndicate, you’re initially just a passive backer who receives our communications and gets the opportunity to opt-in to a deal. Funded Backers commit to the syndicate further by committing money upfront (connect your bank account to AngelList to do so). For Funded Backers, AngelList will automatically withdraw your set amount each time we invest, although you retain to option to opt-out.

We give Funded Backers a few days of advance access so that they have time to adjust their check size or opt-out while there’s still enough room in the syndicate. Because the SEC restricts the number of investors in each deal to 99, other investors will be able to take part after the Funded Backers on only a first-come, first-served basis.

Create an AngelList account in just a few seconds here.

The second step is the “Get Started” page: click Apply to Invest and follow the instructions to verify that you meet the SEC’s requirements to be an angel investor.

Once you’re done, you can go to the Arena Ventures Syndicate page and “back” the syndicate for the amount you want. Note that that amount is just an estimate of what you’re looking to invest and isn’t a formal commitment (you still have to opt-in to deals).

Angel investing can be both an exciting and lucrative endeavor, but it’s not for everyone. Learn more about investing on our blog In The Arena, where you’ll find helpful articles.

If you’re an accredited investor, sign up above to get additional information on investing and on Arena’s active deals.

Another great resource is the Angel Capital Association, which has a guide to commonly asked questions Angel Capital Association FAQs.

Given the number of angels on AngelList and our limited bandwidth as an investment team working around the clock with entrepreneurs, we aren’t able to discuss each investment with every AngelList backer. We do our best to create helpful articles at In The Arena though and offer accredited investors both our internal deal analysis and the chance to interview entrepreneurs we’re funding (sign up as an investor above to access those).

If your question isn’t answered appropriately elsewhere though, go ahead and send us a note at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to get back to you.