The genesis of the "Super Angel" moniker?

Yesterday I saw this question on Quora: When did the term Super Angel first come into use? and couldn't help but adding my own 2 cents.

I believe that the term "Super Angel" was used for the first time in the Startup Visa act. It defines the Super Angel as "an angel investor that has a track record of regularly participating in seed round investments" for the purpose of the startup visa proposal. So the term was coined sometime in 2009 by someone involved in preparing the act - Brad Feld, Dave McClure, Manu Kumar, etc.The term was then extracted out of this context by the media to refer to us, the 15 or so firms investing in the early stage space. It is a total misnomer since we're all all VCs: we manage OPM (Other People's Money), and as such micro-vc or seed fund is really what defines us. But the "Super Angel" term is sticky - to say the least.

As an aside, the Quora team should make it easy for blogger types to syndicate their answer on their own site. Yet another free distribution channel.

Photo Credit: Rachel Titiriga (Flickr)

Comments

[Spencer]

Hey Jeff,
Not sure when the Startup Visa bill was published by I wrote a big feature about Super Angels for BusinessWeek in May 2009, which put the concept on the map in a big and public way:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_22/b4133044585602.htm

best,
Spencer