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If you're an emerging business with the next fantastic product, often you want an angel on your side. A study by the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Analysis showed that "angel investors" - high-net-worth individuals prepared to invest in entrepreneurial businesses at an early stage - shelled out more than $18 billion into early-stage businesses final year alone, compared to $304 million by venture capitalists. Discovering an angel investor, nevertheless, is not an simple process. Safer Smokes Inc. is one firm that understands the challenge of attracting the appropriate investors. This improvement-stage firm is tapping the smoking cessation market place with a unique tobacco-free, nicotine-cost-free smoke known as Bravo, which has the look of a standard cigarette and burns like tobacco, but is truly produced from lettuce fibers. "Bravo lets you smoke your way out of the tobacco habit gradually," mentioned Puzant C. Torigian, chief executive officer of Safer Smokes. For firms like Safer Smokes, it may possibly be too soon to strategy big venture capital firms, but time to move beyond networking with household and friends. Angel investors to the rescue. "The challenge for raising capital in today's marketplace is in harnessing the courage and vision of the angel to see through to the actual investment opportunity," mentioned Torigian. So how do firms like Safer Smokes attract their angel?

• Have a clear-cut target industry for your item or service. For instance, Safer Smokes is targeting the smoking cessation industry, which has sales approaching $ten billion per year, up from $6 billion just three years ago.

Most angel investors prefer organizations that are most likely to show positive cash flow inside their very first 18 months, so having these sorts of statistics about your market place can be an incentive.

• Match the enterprise program objectives to the angel's threat tolerance. Investors want to know the product or service will be distinctive and nicely-cultivated. Safer Smokes has a patented answer that company officials say will "have an effect on the landscape of the health care market." setting up a business