Abstract:
While a large choir of traditional angel investors readily support New Zealand’s
innovation ecosystem with their financial capital, a select group of angels,
colloquially dubbed as the ‘super angels’, are recognised as its ‘powerhouse’ champions.
These investors substantially contribute not only their money, but also their time,
expertise, and connections towards both their portfolio companies and angel groups.
For decades, scholars have focused on understanding the often invisible solo angel
investor. However, the evolutionary formalisation of the angel market has seen
angels increasingly invest collectively within visible, organised angel groups. This
recent shift challenges traditional angel investor profiles and obscures the
characteristics and dynamics of those within these groups, questioning the relevance
of existing angel research to the emergence of the super angel within this context.
This thesis explores, within New Zealand angel groups, how the phenomenon of the
super angel is characterised and understands how this profile informs the enablers and
barriers to the super angel journey alongside the interventions or incentives to foster
a thriving next generation of super angels.
Through 24 semi-structured interviews with referred super angels, emerging super
angels, and network managers across seven formal Angel Association New Zealand
(AANZ) groups and reflexive thematic analysis, this work produced eleven salient
and connected themes and proposes four models. The analysis distinguishes the super
angel profile by a unique balance of internally-cultivated and externally-recognised
characteristics cultivated over time. However, this work recognises heterogeneity in
the super angel population and introduces a typology of super angels based on the
manifestation of their influence, or mana. The journey to becoming a super angel
appears gradual and organic, shaped by an interplay of influences related to the
individual angel, their angel group and the wider New Zealand ecosystem. This
research proposes a model of the super angel’s (paradoxical) life cycle, and relatedly
finds that a super angel’s cultivation of mana requires a mutually reinforcing interweb
of internal and external actions. These findings contribute to the nascent body of
angel group and super angel literature, with important implications for AANZ angel
groups to identify and incentivise their super angel pipeline.