This is the second annual report on investment activity by business angels in the United Kingdom. The inaugural report established a template to examine business angel investment activity in 2008/09 and to estimate the overall size of the market. This report follows this template to report on business angel investment activity in 2009/10.
Business angels are high net worth individuals who invest their own money, either alone or with others, directly in unquoted businesses in which there is no family connection. They normally invest in the form of equity finance in the hope of achieving a significant financial return through some form of exit. Typically they will also take an active involvement in their investee businesses. Business angels have long been recognised as an important source of finance for entrepreneurial businesses, particularly at their start-up and early growth stages where the amounts required are too small to be economic for venture capital funds to invest.