'Angel investments' to spend $50 bln in coming years: Association

"Angel investors," a group of wealthy individuals putting up their own money to back small- and medium-sized businesses, are expected to spend $50 billion in the coming years for such purposes, a leading association announced in an Istanbul summit on Feb. 13. 

Baybars Altuntaş, chairman of the World Business Angels Investment Forum, said the capability of angel investors should be leveraged to increase efficiency of investments, along with market size.      
  
Altuntaş said 320,000 business angels invested 6.7 billion euros ($7.1 billion) in Europe and $26 billion in the U.S. last year.        

"This amount is expected to hit $50 billion in the upcoming years," he said at the forum's opening ceremony, adding that the financing capabilities of angel investors must be increased. 

"Only angel investors have the know-how and the networks to put start-ups and scale-ups into capital markets. If we can create an innovative financial plan for early exits, this will mean more jobs in a shorter period of time," he said.         

The forum focuses on how corporate businesses can foster open innovation and deliver more business value by setting up partnerships with angel investors, start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs.

"We are all coming together to create new ways for angel investors to access finance. Today we are here to shape the global agenda of the early stage equity markets of the world," Altuntaş said.       
 
The two-day event, which sees the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) as its main sponsor and is backed by state-run Anadolu Agency as global communications partner, will host more than 400 angel investors, angel network managers, policymakers, academics, high-growth business owners, presidents of international...