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

Five years ago, angel investing was niche activity practiced by wealthy individuals in tech hubs. Today, it's mainstream topic discussed on social media, featured in mainstream publications, and accessible to broader population of successful professionals.

Why everyone is suddenly talking about angel investing and whether the attention is justified.

What Changed to Create Mainstream Attention

Infrastructure Democratization: The biggest change is infrastructure making angel investing accessible. $1,000 minimums through SPV structures, virtual-first communities, structured educational programming, and professional deal flow curation eliminated traditional barriers.

Previously, angel investing required $25,000-50,000 per investment, geographic proximity to tech hubs, and personal founder networks. These requirements limited participation to very wealthy individuals in specific locations. Modern infrastructure removed these barriers.

Angel Squad and similar communities prove the model works at scale with 2,000+ members across 40+ countries accessing curated opportunities from Hustle Fund's pipeline of 1,000+ monthly applications. This accessibility is genuinely new (last 5 years) and substantive, not just marketing.

Social Media Amplification: Investors sharing success stories on X, LinkedIn, and other platforms created visibility that didn't exist previously. When investors post about backing successful companies, it normalizes angel investing for broader audiences.

This visibility has positive and negative effects. Positive: more people learn angel investing is accessible. Negative: success stories create unrealistic expectations about typical outcomes.

As Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, explains: "Most of your investments will return $0. You will lose money. So it's important to have great portfolio construction." Social media amplifies wins while hiding the 60-70% failures every portfolio experiences.

Economic Conditions: Low interest rates through 2020-2021 pushed investors toward alternative investments seeking returns. When savings accounts and bonds paid nothing, risky alternatives like angel investing became relatively more attractive.

Rising interest rates reversed this somewhat but angel investing infrastructure developed during that period persists.

Entrepreneurship Romanticization: Startup culture became mainstream. Terms like "unicorn," "disrupt," and "founder" entered common vocabulary. This cultural shift made angel investing (funding startups) seem exciting and aspirational rather than obscure financial activity.

Movies, TV shows, and books featuring founders and investors contributed to mainstreaming. "The Social Network" had lasting impact on startup culture perception.

Why Attention Matters

More Capital Flows to Innovation: Increased angel investing means more capital available for earliest-stage companies. This funds innovation that might not happen otherwise. More experimental ideas get tested because angel capital is available.

This is genuinely positive for innovation ecosystem. Founders who couldn't raise from traditional sources (wrong geography, wrong background, non-obvious ideas) now access capital from broader angel base.

Democratization of Returns: Historically, returns from early-stage investing accrued primarily to wealthy individuals and institutions. Broader participation means more diverse group capturing some of those returns.

Whether this matters depends on whether angel investing actually generates good returns (debatable) but principle of broader access to investment opportunities is positive.

Education About Startups: As more people angel invest, more people learn how startups actually work. This education has professional value beyond investment returns. Understanding startup mechanics helps in many careers even if you never work at or start a company.

Network Effects: Larger angel investor base creates more connections for founders. More investors means more potential introductions, advice, and support for portfolio companies. This helps startups succeed.

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." More angels means more people practicing and learning, which strengthens ecosystem over time.

The Downsides of Mainstream Attention

Unrealistic Expectations: Social media success stories create impression that angel investing produces quick, massive returns. Reality is 2-3x over 10 years is success. This expectation gap causes disappointment when reality doesn't match hype.

New angels enter with wrong expectations about timeline, returns, and failure rates. They're more likely to make mistakes or abandon practice prematurely.

Overcrowding at Entry Level: More angels competing for same deals might drive valuations higher at pre-seed/seed stages. This compression of returns benefits founders but potentially hurts angel returns.

Whether this has actually happened is debatable. Deal volume has also increased so supply and demand might be balanced. But concern exists.

Quality Dilution: Some communities or platforms entering market to capture demand provide lower-quality deal flow, minimal education, or poor terms. Not all infrastructure is equal. Mainstream attention attracts both quality providers and opportunists.

This means beginners must be more discerning about which communities to join. Name recognition or marketing sophistication doesn't guarantee quality.

Regulatory Attention: As angel investing becomes mainstream, regulators pay more attention. This could lead to more restrictions on private securities investing. Accredited investor thresholds might increase or additional requirements might be imposed.

This is speculative but regulatory environment could shift to be more restrictive as participation grows.

Is the Hype Justified?

What's Legitimately Exciting: The infrastructure democratization is real and positive. Successful professionals who meet accreditation can now participate in angel investing with $15,000-20,000 over 2-3 years. This was genuinely impossible 10 years ago.

Geographic barriers are gone. Educational resources exist. Communities provide deal flow and support. These changes substantively opened angel investing to broader population.

What's Overhyped: The financial returns. Most angels would be better off in index funds from pure return perspective. The time commitment (3-5 hours weekly for years) and illiquidity (7-10 years minimum) aren't worth it just for 2-3x returns.

Angel investing makes sense for learning, networks, and participation in innovation. It doesn't make sense as wealth-building strategy for most people.

The social media narrative emphasizing massive returns and quick successes is overhyped and misleading. Real experience is mostly waiting and watching most investments struggle.

The Honest Middle Ground: Angel investing is worthwhile for some people for right reasons (education, networks, participation in innovation) with realistic expectations (modest returns, high failure rates, long timeline). It's not for everyone and not as exciting as social media suggests.

Increased accessibility is genuine progress. But accessibility doesn't mean everyone should participate or that participation guarantees good outcomes.

Who Benefits from Mainstream Attention

Founders Benefit Most: More angel capital means founders can raise earlier at better terms. Broader investor base means non-traditional founders (wrong background, wrong geography, non-obvious ideas) can access capital that was previously unavailable.

This is unambiguously positive for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Quality Communities Benefit: Established communities with strong infrastructure see increased membership and validation. More members create better economics (lower costs through scale) and richer networks.

Angel Squad's growth to 2,000+ members demonstrates how mainstream attention benefits quality providers. Scale enables better deal terms, more comprehensive programming, and stronger community effects.

Individual Angels Benefit (Sometimes): Angels who enter with realistic expectations, appropriate capital allocation, and disciplined approach benefit from accessibility that didn't exist previously. They learn about startups, build networks, and potentially generate decent returns.

Angels who enter with unrealistic expectations driven by hype likely end up disappointed and might lose money through poor decisions.

Addressing the Skeptics

"It's Just FOMO-Driven Speculation": There's truth here. Some people angel invest because it seems trendy or because everyone else is doing it. This FOMO-driven participation isn't healthy.

But infrastructure changes are real. Accessibility improvements are substantive. Not everyone participating is doing so for wrong reasons or without understanding.

"Returns Don't Justify Risk": Also some truth. Risk-adjusted returns from angel investing often don't beat index funds. Most people would be better off financially in passive index investments.

But not everything is about pure financial optimization. Learning, networks, and participation have value beyond returns. Just be honest about this rather than pretending it's optimal wealth building.

"It's Creating Asset Bubble": Possible. More capital chasing early-stage deals might inflate valuations beyond sustainable levels. This benefits founders raising now but could hurt returns for angels investing at peak valuations.

Whether bubble exists is debatable and probably unknowable until it potentially pops. But concern isn't irrational.

As Shiyan Koh, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund, notes: "Great founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere." Mainstream attention and broader participation increase likelihood of supporting great founders from non-traditional backgrounds, which is positive for innovation regardless of bubble concerns.

The 2026 Cultural Moment

Why Now Specifically: Combination of infrastructure maturation, social media visibility, economic conditions, and cultural romanticization of entrepreneurship created perfect storm for angel investing to go mainstream.

This wasn't inevitable. It required specific infrastructure builders creating platforms, communities, and tools that made participation feasible. It required investors sharing their experiences publicly. It required entrepreneurs building companies that captured imaginations.

Is This Sustainable: The infrastructure changes are sustainable. Lower minimums, virtual operations, and structured education aren't going away. These are genuine improvements that persist.

The hype might moderate. Social media enthusiasm cycles through topics. But underlying accessibility won't reverse. Angel investing will remain more accessible than it was decade ago.

What Comes Next: Likely continued growth in participation, more sophistication in offerings (better tools, more specialized communities, improved educational resources), potential regulatory changes (could be restrictive or enabling), and eventual normalization where angel investing becomes unremarkable part of sophisticated investors' portfolios.

The question isn't whether angel investing deserves attention. It does, accessibility improvements are meaningful. The question is whether individual attention translates to appropriate participation with realistic expectations.

Making Individual Decision

Don't angel invest because everyone's talking about it. That's worst possible reason. Angel invest because you meet requirements, have realistic expectations, value learning and networks, and understand that returns will likely be modest after decade of illiquidity.

The mainstream attention is justified by infrastructure improvements that made participation possible for broader population. Whether attention is justified for you specifically depends on your goals, resources, and expectations.

Angel investing through quality communities like Angel Squad provides legitimate opportunity for successful professionals to learn about startups, build networks, and potentially generate decent returns. But it's not magic wealth creation. It's disciplined portfolio construction over decade with modest expected outcomes.

The conversation around angel investing is healthy. More people understanding how startups work and how innovation gets funded is positive. Just distinguish between what's genuinely exciting (accessibility) and what's overhyped (returns and glamour).