HBSAANY Chairman's Letter 2025

HBS AngelsNYC
Dec 23, 2025
6 min read

This article is originally in PDF Format. Click below to access the original.

Dear Fellow Alumni, Investors, and Friends,

This year tested conviction as much as judgment. Thank you for bringing both to the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of New York and for helping build this community over the last decade.

The year in results

This past year, we invested in 24 companies, of which 14 are new, and 10 are follow-on rounds to our existing portfolio companies. More than 10 existing portfolio companies raised subsequent higher rounds after the ones we backed. In a market where capital is more expensive and follow-on rounds are rarer, that matters.

We also saw one clean data point that reminds us why early-stage matters when it works: one company delivered a 200x return for members who invested in the first round, and a 45x return for those who invested in the second. That outcome is not typical, and it is certainly not a promise. But it is a valuable case study in our model.

The company built real value over time. Ownership decisions stayed disciplined. And the work did not stop after the wire transfer. This win is even more special since one of our members has been on the company’s board since inception, supporting the team through complex decisions that rarely appear in a pitch deck but often determine the outcome.

That is the lesson. In investing, expertise and follow-through are not “nice to haves.” They are often the difference between a good story and a durable company. Because early-stage investing does not resolve quickly, it reveals slowly. It reveals judgment. It reveals whether we can stay calm when the market gets loud. It reveals whether we are building companies or paying for narratives.

Why this matters

And that is what this letter is about: what we learned, where we stand, and why our model is built to compound judgment, not just capital.

America’s economic story has always been an innovation story. Patient capital backing unproven but bold ideas. Builders taking informed risks. Institutions investing through uncertainty. Innovation is not a natural resource. It’s a national moat, built, defended, and forged over decades of hard and disciplined work. It must be funded, mentored, challenged, and protected, especially in moments like this one, when capital is more expensive, customers are more cautious, and headlines can swing the narrative faster than fundamentals change.

That’s where we fit. We are not just writing checks. We are helping founders turn raw ambition into durable companies, `and turning early risk into real value creation: better products, stronger teams, cleaner unit economics, smarter governance, and, over time, jobs and category-defining outcomes.

Angel investing, at its best, is civic infrastructure. It is society saying: we still bet on builders. But the wager is not paid out quickly. Early-stage investing is the only corner of finance where you can work hard, think clearly, choose well, and look wrong for a very long time. That’s why our approach is built for endurance, not applause.

HBS Alumni Angels Community Values

1. Respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others.

2. Honesty and integrity in dealing with all members of the community.

3. Accountability for personal behavior.

4. Respect the confidentiality of company-provided information.

5. Disclose any potential conflicts of interest immediately.

6. Refrain from soliciting clients.

7. Be considerate and thoughtful when dealing with each other, and with entrepreneurs and others in the community.

How we invested this year

We’re investing in a market where three truths coexist: capital costs more, technology is moving faster than most incumbents can absorb, and startup narratives can swing wildly, sometimes within the same month. Follow-on capital is more difficult and more demanding. Our job is not to chase hype. It is to be steadily present, cycle after cycle, backing real businesses at reasonable terms.

What we saw this year was the full spectrum in our portfolio of 150+ companies: companies that merged, pivoted, or chose controlled landings, and a handful of standouts now on trajectories that matter. The early-stage companies do not move in straight lines. But the signal is improving: stronger discipline at entry, better follow-on judgment, and a growing set of companies with credible paths to meaningful exits.

Deal flow stayed strong across healthcare, fintech, B2B software, AI applications, industrial tech, and consumer. Here are a few examples from the portfolio as a window into what we back.

Skyfire AI was selected to lead the nation’s first statewide Drone First Responder program.
Ocrolus has successfully integrated AI into its workflow and analytics platform for lenders.
Wellthy is helping families balance work and caregiving responsibilities through a combination of precision technology and human expertise.
Atraverse is modernizing transseptal access to make left-heart procedures safer and more efficient.
Smartlens is building an electronics-free contact lens for continuous intraocular pressure monitoring.
ProSentry streamlines real-time detection, information, and alerts into a single comprehensive platform, bringing peace of mind, reduced risk, and smarter property management.

And the list goes on. But the point isn’t the list. It’s the pattern: real problems, real customers, real moats - technical, defensible, and earned.

Our edge is the wisdom of the crowd

There’s one principle that deserves to be stated plainly because it’s central to our model’s success: the wisdom of the crowd. Angel investing is a decision-making business disguised as a money business. The edge is not a lone genius with a hot take. It is disciplined collective judgment, grounded in real operating experience, diverse expertise, and the willingness to challenge each other before we write a check.

With more than 300 members, HBSAANY includes alumni who have built, scaled, and sometimes shut down companies. In nearly every deal, someone in the room has sold to that customer, navigated that regulation, received an FDA approval, or run that P&L.

When a founder pitches AI for healthcare, we do not just nod. We have operators, clinicians, scientists, and senior executives who ask hard questions, pressure-test the workflow, and point to conversations that can quickly validate the thesis. When we engage as a group, we make better decisions. Not perfect decisions, but fewer unforced errors and better odds of identifying the outlier before the market catches up.

In other words, we do not just underwrite companies. We underwrite judgment, collectively.

Where we will improve

We fell short in some ways. We did not always move as quickly as some founders needed. Thoroughness is a strength, but we cannot let rigorous become slow. We can also be more systematic in post-investment support. Many members are extraordinarily helpful in one-off moments.

What we still need is a repeatable playbook founders can count on: structured office hours, stronger talent and customer networks, and consistent help at key inflection points.

As the portfolio grows, we also need better visibility data, not anecdotes, to track performance, risk, and concentration. These are all fixable problems, and we have a plan to address them.

2026 priorities

1. A sharper sector thesis where we can be truly differentiated, especially AI applied to real-world industries and B2B software with clear ROI and capital-efficient growth.

2. A stronger post-investment platform with structured advisory, board placement, and focused support sprints around moments that define outcomes, including first enterprise sale, Series A preparation, and major pivots.

3. Better portfolio tracking to improve follow-on decisions and learn from our own history instead of folklore.

4. More flexible member engagement, from light-touch to deep involvement, so participation is a spectrum, not all or nothing.

5. A value-creation playbook built by entrepreneurs who’ve done it before and executed by practitioners in partnership with the founders so that support becomes predictable rather than accidental.

The long view

Warren Buffett likes to say his favorite holding period is forever. We do not have that luxury.

Our companies must succeed, exit, or find dignified endings.

But there is one horizon that applies forever: the community we are building. Deals come and go. Markets heat up and cool down. What we control is the quality of our judgment, our behavior, and our relationships with each other and with the founders who trust us.

Our job is simple: identify exceptional companies, support them intelligently, and stay disciplined when markets get frothy or fearful. If we do that, and build a community where judgment compounds across cycles, our best returns are still ahead of us.

The next decade will separate angels who invested in narratives from those who invested in businesses. We intend to be in the second group.

Thank you for your trust, your capital, and your judgment.

Let’s keep building. With appreciation, gratitude, and resolve,