Ajo Angels Weekly Pulse

Most aspiring angel investors get stuck at the same place: The decision

You've done all of your homework. The founder's answers check out, the numbers make sense, so you're genuinely interested. But then weeks go by and you still haven't pulled the trigger. You feel like you need one more conversation or one more data point to be sure. Meanwhile, the round closes without you.

The toughest part for most new angel investors is not letting FOMO get the best of them but also not letting genuinely good opportunities slip away.

The key for having balance here is to trust your work and your gut. If they both point to yes, don’t hesitate…do the deal.

You’re never gonna get better at it if you don’t get lots of reps doing it, and the only way to get those reps is to do it 🙂.

Step 1: The Final Yes or No

By this point, you already know enough. The mistake most people make is thinking that more diligence will create certainty. It won't. There's no amount of research that eliminates risk in early-stage investing.

The real questions you need to answer are simpler:

If you can answer yes to all three, you're ready. 

Step 2: Papering the Deal

This is the legal stuff. You'll be signing one of the following standard documents: a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), an equity purchase agreement, or a convertible note. Each has its own implications.

If you negotiate special terms like pro rata rights or information rights those will get documented in a side letter. Most small angel checks don't come with these extras, but if yours does, make sure it's in writing before you wire money.

Confirm your allocation (how much you're investing) and the close date (when the money is due). Know this upfront so you're not scrambling later.

Pro rata rights determine whether you can invest in future rounds to maintain your ownership percentage. 

Side letters are where special terms get documented. 

Don’t be sloppy, know what you’re signing, ask "dumb" questions now, before you wire the money. 

Step 3: Wiring The Money

Send the money to the startup. Once you do this, you’re now an owner. What happens to this company now can affect your net worth.

This is where some new angel investors freeze, especially when it's their first few checks. Trust your work and your gut. 

Step 4: Post-Close Behavior

Great angels don't hover over founders, but they don't disappear either. There's a balance.

This is what good post-close behavior looks like if you and the startup so inclined:

From a Black investor lens, this is also about building relationship capital. You're not just backing a company, you're building a reputation as someone founders and other investors want on the cap table. That reputation gets you access to better deals, stronger syndicate partners.

The Execution Mindset

What separates people who build great angel portfolios from people who stay stuck in analysis is that the great ones:

So if you've been sitting on a deal, stuck between interest and action, ask yourself: what's really holding you back? Is it legitimate concern, or is it just fear dressed up as diligence?

UMI is tackling a massive women’s health gap: 2.7B women face hormonal disorders that mainstream healthcare doesn’t fix. They offer a 3 month, clinically proven, personalized AI powered program that delivers real results, not generic wellness.

They’ve already got 435 paying customers, 45.6k followers, 4,600 email leads, and $555k in revenue.

The founder has a 100k audience and a track record of helping women heal naturally.

Early results: 83 percent success rate, including cycle normalization and fibroid reduction from 4.8cm to 1.4cm.

Asoba helps African businesses avoid costly power outages by aggregating clean energy from multiple sources and enabling private electricity trading. The platform improves reliability, lowers costs, and turns excess power into revenue.

The Backstory: Power outages cost African businesses billions each year and force companies to rely on expensive diesel generators. While solar adoption is rising, much of that energy is wasted because there is no easy way to sell or share it. Asoba was created to fix this gap by turning fragmented energy assets into a shared, reliable power network.

Key Innovation: Asoba operates a virtual power plant and private energy marketplace that aggregates distributed solar and storage, forecasts supply and demand, manages dispatch in real time, and enables businesses to buy and sell electricity directly with each other. By combining software, energy trading, and infrastructure financing, Asoba delivers reliable power without waiting for public grid upgrades, helping companies cut costs, reduce outages, and unlock new revenue from excess energy.

Funding: Raising $1.5M to scale operations, sign additional microgrid clients, launch live marketplace trades. The company has $180K in booked revenue, an $8M ARR pipeline, and active pilots with national utilities across multiple African markets.

Esusu, a US-based fintech co-founded by a Black founder, helped renters build credit and reached a $1 billion valuation after raising a fraction of what most Silicon Valley startups raise, showing how early ownership in overlooked markets creates outsized returns.

Cheers,

Abdul

Hey Hey… I’m Abdul I’m the chairman of Ajo Angels and Shujaa Capital and I’m on a mission to introduce angel investing to 25,000 black folks over the next five years. I’m doing this with the goal of narrowing the racial wealth gap as well as trying to close the billion dollar funding gap for black founders.

This information is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Angel investing involves substantial risk, including the risk of total loss. Consult with a qualified financial advisor and attorney before making investment decisions.