Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

For decades, proximity to San Francisco meant proximity to the best startup investment opportunities. The networks, the serendipitous meetings, the ecosystem density all favored investors who lived and worked in the Bay Area. If you wanted serious access to quality deal flow, you needed to be local.

That era has ended. Remote angels are now competing effectively for SF-quality deals, and in some ways winning against local investors who haven't adapted to new infrastructure.

How the SF Advantage Worked

The Bay Area's dominance in startup investing wasn't arbitrary. Real structural advantages concentrated opportunity there.

Network density created information advantages. When founders, investors, and operators all lived within miles of each other, information flowed through personal relationships. Knowing who was building what, which companies were struggling or thriving, and who to trust with capital all depended on being embedded in local networks. You couldn't manufacture these connections from outside.

Serendipity favored the present. Chance encounters at coffee shops, events, and shared workspaces introduced investors to founders before formal fundraising began. Being physically present meant being available for these unplanned interactions that often led to the best opportunities.

Reputation built through local presence. Founders chose investors partly based on reputation, and reputation built through visible local engagement. Speaking at events, mentoring at accelerators, and being known in the community all required physical participation.

Support expectations assumed proximity. Founders wanted investors who could meet for coffee, stop by the office, and attend board meetings in person. Geographic distance seemed like genuine disadvantage for providing the support founders expected.

As Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, explains: "Getting deal flow & education have been the bigger blockers to date" for new investors.

The SF ecosystem was the solution to these blockers for those who lived there. For everyone else, the blockers remained.

What Changed Everything

Multiple shifts converged to erode geographic advantage and enable remote participation in SF-quality deal flow.

Remote work normalized virtual relationships. The pandemic accelerated acceptance of virtual meetings, but the trend was already underway. Founders became comfortable with investors they'd never met in person. Entire fundraising processes happened over Zoom. Physical presence stopped being prerequisite for building investment relationships.

Community infrastructure scaled nationally and globally. Investor communities like Angel Squad developed models that work regardless of member location. Deal flow curation, educational programming, and peer community all function virtually. A member in Austin or Atlanta accesses the same opportunities as a member in San Francisco.

Institutional deal flow became shareable. Funds like Hustle Fund, based in the Bay Area with all the local network advantages, began sharing their deal flow with community members globally. The geographic sourcing advantage remains with the fund, but access to that sourcing extends to anyone in the community.

Founder expectations evolved. Many founders now prefer diverse investor bases over concentrated local ones. Investors from different regions bring different networks, perspectives, and potential customer connections. Geographic diversity became feature rather than bug.

As Eric Bahn, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, emphasizes: "For beginners, a bigger startup portfolio is better. It helps with diversification and helps you learn and get reps in. Investing requires practice like everything else."

Remote angels can now build those bigger portfolios from anywhere, with practice opportunities matching what local investors access.

Why Remote Angels Are Actually Winning

The shift goes beyond mere parity. In some ways, remote angels leveraging modern infrastructure outperform local investors relying on traditional approaches.

Community deal flow often exceeds personal network deal flow. A well-connected local angel might see dozens of quality opportunities annually through their network. An Angel Squad member sees institutionally-curated opportunities from Hustle Fund's review of 1,000+ monthly applications. The community pipeline typically exceeds individual network capacity regardless of how strong that network is.

Structured education beats scattered learning. Local investors often learn through experience and informal conversation, which is valuable but unstructured. Community members access weekly programming from active GPs covering evaluation frameworks, portfolio construction, and market dynamics. Structured education accelerates development even compared to local immersion.

Lower cost of participation. Living in San Francisco is expensive. Housing, office space, and general cost of living consume resources that remote investors can deploy into actual investments. The financial overhead of local presence is significant.

Reduced social pressure on investment decisions. Local investors face pressure to back friends, former colleagues, and community members regardless of investment merit. Remote investors evaluate opportunities more objectively since personal relationships don't cloud judgment.

As Shiyan Koh, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, notes: "Great founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere."

The corollary is that great investors can now work from anywhere too.

Leveraging SF Deal Flow From Anywhere

If you're interested in accessing San Francisco startup quality without relocating, the path is clear.

Join community with institutional SF sourcing. Angel Squad members access Hustle Fund's Bay Area-sourced deal flow regardless of their own location. The fund's SF presence, network, and reputation do the sourcing work. Members do the evaluating and investing.

Engage with education from SF-based practitioners. Hustle Fund's GPs operate from the Bay Area ecosystem, bringing current perspective to weekly programming. Remote members learn from locally-embedded practitioners without being local themselves.

Build portfolio through consistent participation. $1,000 minimums enable proper portfolio construction. Remote angels can build 20+ investment diversified portfolios of SF-quality opportunities by engaging consistently with community deal flow.

Connect with globally-distributed peer community. Angel Squad's 2,000+ members span 40+ countries. The peer network isn't Bay Area-centric, which provides diverse perspectives that purely local networks lack.

The SF startup community remains important for deal sourcing and ecosystem development. But accessing SF-quality opportunities no longer requires SF residence. Remote angels leveraging modern community infrastructure are winning because they combine institutional deal flow with lower costs and more objective evaluation. Geography has become optional where it was once required.