Looking for an opportunity?
Are you looking to get access to ambitious companies, with growth potential? Are you looking to invest in new high potential start-ups from Northern Ireland's emerging knowledge sector?
Are you looking to take control over your own investment strategy and share your expertise and skills in order to maximise returns on investment? Then speak to Halo today. Halo is the Northern Ireland Business angel network, a joint initiative between Invest NI and InterTradeIreland.
The Halo programme provides a matching service between companies seeking investors and business angels. Since 2009, over £11m of private money has been invested in companies with the figure rising to £24m if leveraged investment is included. There are over 150 angels and partner investors within the Halo NI. Under the overall umbrella of Halo, a number of angel groups/syndicates have been developed which greatly improve the investment process.
What is a business angel?
Business angel investors are high net worth individuals who provide smaller amounts of finance (typically in the range £40,000 to £200,000) at an earlier stage than many venture capital funds are able to invest. They are increasingly investing alongside both seed venture capital funds.
Angels usually contribute much more than pure cash – they often have industry knowledge and contacts that they pass on to entrepreneurs. Angels will often take non-executive board positions in the companies in which they invest.
The importance of business angels to the equity capital industry has grown significantly in recent years. In the United States business angels invest a similar quantum of money as the US venture capital (‘VC’) community (seed and growth capital) on an annual basis. They invest in many more companies than VC’s since the average business angel investment is much lower than the average VC investment.
The growing role of business angels as catalysts in many start-up companies is now well recognised in Europe. It is worth noting that much of the business angel community is ’ad-hoc‘ involving family, friends and private individuals investing directly in start-ups but not as part of any formal network.
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Investing in private companies is very high risk.
Halo is a member of HBAN. HBAN is an all-island umbrella group responsible for the development of business angel syndicates. HBAN actively works to increase the number of angel investors involved in investing in early stage companies and supports the formation of new and existing angel networks, both regionally and internationally, and within industry sectors. HBAN has also published a guide to explain fully the process of business angel investing “Investing in Private Companies Insights for Business Angel Investors”.