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Facts about AngelPad (as of March 2019)
- AngelPad was launched in 2010 by husband-and-wife team Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas
- To date, AngelPad has launched over 150 companies in 12 cohorts and in aggregate, AngelPad companies have raised over $1.7 Billion in venture funding [source]
- To date AngelPad has raised three Funds: AngelPad Beta (2010-2013), AP Fund II (2014-2016), AP Fund III (2017 onwards), as well as about a dozen special purpose vehicles (SPV).
- While other accelerators have decided to take on more and more companies (Y Combinator’s 2019 cohort graduated over 200 companies [source]) and launch additional cities (Techstars has programs in over 50 cities/verticals [source]), AngelPad has stayed true to the original goal: Find a dozen awesome companies with amazing founders and spend three very intense months with them focusing on their specific business.
- In 2018 AngelPad announced that they no longer host a classic demo day [source] and replacing it with a “speed-dating” investor day. AngelPad’s decisively different views has prompted StrictlyVC to coin AngelPad as the Anti-YC in an article in 2014 [source] and it is now a widely used reference
- In the most recent study of accelerator performance, MIT’s Seed Accelerator Rankings Project 2018 [source], AngelPad was again ranked the highest tier: “Platinum Plus”, sharing the top rank only with Mountain View based Y-Combinator and Stanford’s StartX.
- The Accelerator Rankings study’s researcher Yael Hochberg (Rice University & MIT Sloan), said “AngelPad’s rise to the top is rooted in extremely high satisfaction of its graduates, high valuations for its portfolio companies and fundraising success” and Susan Cohen (University of Richmond) notes “With small cohorts and the attention AngelPad dedicates to each startup, they are in a class of their own”
- AngelPad’s most funded companies include Postmates, Coverhound, Kinnek (NYC), Iterable, Periscope Data, Drone Deploy, Ride Zum [more portfolio companies]. To date AngelPad companies have raised over $1.7 billion in venture funding [source]
- Notable exits include: Mopub acquired by Twitter in 2013 for $350m (at the time the largest exit of a company that launched at an accelerator) [source], Adku to Groupon in 2011, Astrid & Blik to Yahoo in 2013/2014 and Spotsetter to Apple among several others. In total AngelPad has created about $900M in exit value to date.
About the founders:
Carine Magescas has worked in fast-pace/high-growth tech startups since the dawn of the Internet. She led Strategic Alliances at Business Objects and was part of the pre-IPO team at Informatica, before launching an e-commerce startup for home design accessories. In 2017 she was nominated “Angel Investor of the Year” at TechCrunch’s 10th Annual Crunchies Awards [source]. Apart from tech, Carine is also an accomplished Fine Art Photographer whose work has been exhibited in London, New York and San Francisco.
- In 2016 Magescas noted “AngelPad really has two facets: First and foremost helping founders launch and grow companies – but it also is a venture fund and the 3 months we spend with founders provides a very effective due-diligence for follow-on investments – making it a superior venture model”.
Thomas Korte was Google’s first International Product Manager, responsible for all the Google Product Launches in Europe dating back to 2002. He spent 7 years at Headquarters and was at the origin of Adwords, Google Maps and Google Shopping. He is the author of two patents which are still a crucial in Google search ranking and ads monetization products. Thomas is known for his vision and creative ideas.
- In a 2017 interview, Korte described AngelPad’s start: “In the beginning we just wanted to help founders get started – the kind of support Carine wished she had when launching her startup – over time it became clear that it was a very viable investment model too. But the best part is still to work with founders to improve on their vision.”