The Anatomy of Angel Investing - Evidence from Sweden
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Swedish House Of Finance |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 1 028 733 |
| Project duration | November 2019 - June 2022 |
| Status | Completed |
Important results from the project
This project was aimed at providing a thorough and quantitative analysis of angel financing. We constructed a unique database for angel financing by combining (1)Registry data on Swedish individuals from Statistics Sweden (2) Microdata on all Swedish corporations including financials and patents from Serrano and PatStat(3) data extracted from Bolagsverket forms on new equity issues 2003-2014 in cooperation with the Tillväxtanalys. Our working paper "Who becomes a business angel?" has been presented Copenhagen Business School, Toulouse, Essec, and the NFN conference in Oslo.
Expected long term effects
Angels are overwhelmingly drawn from the top 1% of the wealth distribution. A majority of angels have prior work experience in start-ups, typically as executives, and have chosen business-relevant degrees while in higher education. Angels also have much higher general ability (as measured using cognitive and non-cognitive ability scores) than even other very wealthy peers. Their asset allocation suggests unusually low levels of risk aversion and strong non-pecuniary investment motivations.
Approach and implementation
See above