This month marks the 20th anniversary of Archangel Informal Investment, which was founded by two Scottish entrepreneurs, Mike Rutterford and Barry Sealey.
Over the past two decades the business angel syndicate has supported more than 70 Scottish companies, investing GBP174m in the businesses.
Established in Edinburgh in 1992, after its founders recognised that to encourage Scottish business start-ups, it was paramount to have private investment properly channelled by experienced dealmakers.
One American academic, Professor Robert Wiltbank of Willamette University in Oregon, has suggested that it is the oldest angel investment group in the world. It is also Scotland’s biggest investor in life sciences, having led funding totalling more than GBP80m to the sector over the last 20 years.
Now the country’s largest provider of business angel funding, Archangels has supported some of Scotland’s high-profile tech and life science companies, including Touch Bionics, MGB Biopharma, Optos and Arrayjet.
Archangels’ members (of which there are more than 100) have invested GBP74m of their personal cash to support early stage funding of young businesses, which has in turn encouraged other organisations and venture capitalists to invest around GBP100m.
Within this investment portfolio, 14 of the companies Archangels has supported have successfully exited (including three flotations), with 25 still being supported by the angel group. The syndicate’s current portfolio includes a mix of high tech (35 per cent), life science (27 per cent), IT (15 per cent) and businesses from other sectors (23 per cent), with the average investment being GBP1m.
Archangels is headed up by chief executive John Waddell, along with a four strong investment team, who work together to identify strong opportunities and create value across the portfolio.
Waddell says: “During economically challenging times, encouraging the growth of early stage, companies is vital. This is what both Mike and Barry recognised 20 years ago, and our efforts have continued to grow over the years not just in financial terms, but also in providing the companies with domain expertise to support their growth ambitions.”
Two of Archangels’ newest investments include GBP0.8m to Edinburgh University spin-out Blackford Analysis, which will allow the algorithmic solutions developer to embark on a business development programme in the UK and US; as well as GBP0.8m to camera design and manufacturing company NC Tech which has developed the world’s first fully automatic 360 degree camera, which enables 3D visualisation and interpretation.
