How to get into angel investing and start making money from startups

Abay Absamet, Co-founder of Silk Road Angels

About the Startup and the Founder

I am a technology entrepreneur engaged in the development of digital products and solutions. I am also a business angel and co-founder of Silk Road Angels — we connect the emerging markets of Central Eurasia with the American market and Silicon Valley. We operate under the umbrella of Silk Innovation Hub — our innovation ecosystem in Silicon Valley.

I entered the startup and venture investment market more than six years ago. I started at Astana Hub, where we launched incubation and acceleration programs, helped establish angel clubs, and promoted venture investing. Later, I gained experience launching a venture fund. At some point, I realized I wanted to operate as a private player — thus, Silk Road Angels was born.

We invest in fast-growing early-stage technology startups, primarily in the United States, focusing mainly on the diaspora from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan. To date, we have more than 40 projects in our portfolio.

Investment Rounds and Key Achievements

The investment culture in the region is actively developing. The Kazakh retail investment market has grown more than 40-fold over the past five years — thanks to the "People's IPO" program, the rise of technology IPOs, and demand for real estate. A growing number of investors who already work with the stock market and real estate are increasingly turning their attention to venture capital.

If we break down the investment pyramid: at the base are traditional low-risk instruments, followed by bonds, stocks, and real estate. Venture capital is one of the highest-risk asset classes, but also one of the most potentially profitable. The target return for venture investments is tens, hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of times the initial investment.

Strategy and Approach to Investing

A business angel is an individual who invests free capital in early-stage technology startups. In our region, this includes three categories: traditional entrepreneurs, top managers, and investors working with various asset classes.

There are three ways to enter the market:

The first is to pass money to a venture fund: passively, without participating in decision-making.

The second is to become a business angel yourself and review hundreds of deals per year.

The third is to join an angel club.

At Silk Road Angels, out of more than 500 deals per year, we select about 20, invest ourselves, and share the opportunity with the community — it takes about half an hour to an hour to make a decision on each. This is the optimal option for those who want to combine their main activities with venture investing.

Our investors come not only for financial returns — they want to be at the forefront, improve their deal-sourcing skills, and apply new tools to their own businesses. In one hour of conversation with a founder who deeply understands their industry, you can learn more than from books.

We regularly conduct educational programs and meetups. Recently, we completed a two-month course on AI jointly with Stanford and OpenAI Academy — more than 700 participants from 150 companies in the region. We also invite investors to Silicon Valley — many return and send their children for summer internships.

When evaluating startups, we look at three criteria: the founder's domain expertise, competitive advantages, and the team's ability to sell. In the AI era, technology is no longer a barrier to entry. One of our startups trained a model on data from top clients — this is their Data moat, which delivers better results than competitors. It is much more important whether the founder understands the inner workings of the industry and knows how to attract and retain customers.

It is also important that founders proactively build relationships with top venture funds and warm them up for future rounds — for us, this is a signal of team maturity.

Mistakes and Lessons

Rebuilding the mindset of a traditional entrepreneur is difficult. Venture investments require a portfolio approach and an understanding of the Power Law: out of 100 investments, about 70% will fail or return zero, while one or two projects will pay off the entire portfolio and deliver multiple growth.

A common mistake among beginners: they invest in three to five projects, the first ones start going bankrupt — and this becomes a stop-loss factor. It is precisely at this moment that you need to continue building your portfolio. Venture capital is patient money for three to five years with extremely low liquidity. You cannot quickly cash out as you can in the stock market — you need to wait for an exit: the next major round, M&A, or IPO.

The American venture ecosystem often looks like another universe to many: SAFE agreements, Delaware corporations, cap tables. At Silk Road Angels, we take this work on ourselves — filtering deals while being in America, localizing the language and technical vocabulary. Everything works online: from reviewing deals and pitches with founders to creating SPVs in Delaware, transferring funds, and receiving reports from startups. The key question here is trust: when club founders themselves invest their own money, barriers are removed.

Advice for Founders

1. Start by building your deal-sourcing skills — watch pitches, talk to founders, attend accelerator demo days.
2. Do not invest your last money. Invest only free capital, the loss of which will not change your quality of life. No more than 5-7% of your total investment portfolio.
3. Think in terms of a portfolio, not a single deal. Minimum 20-30 deals over two to four years. With checks starting at $10,000, this amounts to $200,000-$300,000 in total capital distributed over time.
4. Join angel clubs — this is the optimal way to access quality deal flow without getting immersed in daily operations.
5. Be prepared to wait at least three years. Venture capital is patient money with low liquidity.
6. Invest not only for money. Deal-sourcing skills, communication with smart founders, and new tools for business are equally valuable outcomes.
7. Find a guide you trust. The American ecosystem — SAFE agreements, Delaware corporations, cap tables — stops being intimidating when there is a team nearby that invests its own money and takes all operations on itself.