There are two types of angel investors in Silicon Valley today. The first type includes most of the “super angels,” who are trying to hold the line on $4 million valuations for early stage investments and as a group seem unwilling to move past that psychological threshold. The second group say angel investing is a hits-driven business, and the valuations are less important than simply being in the right deals.
We’re keeping a close eye on angel deals to watch this trend play out. Hipmunk, a new Y Combinator travel startup that we wrote about in August, is one of the first deals to fall cleanly on one side of the line.
Hipmunk closed a hyper competitive financing, we’ve confirmed with the company, raising around $1 million total. Investors include SV Angel (which has been hyper-critical of the AngelGate crowd), Paul Buchheit, Ashton Kutcher (through A-Grade Investments), Matt Mullenweg, Sam Altman, Geoff Ralston and others. But other than Conway/SVAngel, not a super angel is to be found on the list.
Why’s that? The valuation popped up in the highly competitive round. We’re trying to track down the exact valuation but the company is understandably hesitant to talk. We’ll update with new information.
In the meantime, this new money will allow Hipmunk to expand beyond their 4-person team and start to roll out new travel services beyond flights.