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Alliance of Angels Executive Director Angie Parker. (Photo courtesy of Angie Parker)
Angie Parker is the new executive director of Alliance of Angels, the Seattle-based investment group.
A University of Washington Foster School of Business graduate and a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as an airborne radar technician, Parker has past experience with a number of Seattle-area startups.
She replaces Yi-Jian Ngo, a fixture of Seattle’s startup community who spent 13 years leading AoA before stepping down last June. Ngo previously worked at Microsoft and AT&T.
“I want to hit ‘refresh’ on the AoA. Our members know it, want it, and trust me to do it wisely,” Parker told GeekWire. “It’s a really great fit, I think, for me.”
Founded in 1998 under the umbrella of the Technology Alliance, AoA spun out of the nonprofit in 2012. The group is known for its network of more than 180 angel investors who review more than 150 deals annually and make individual investment decisions in up-and-coming tech startups based across the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
AoA members have pumped more than $125 million into 250-plus startups, with more than 40 exits from companies such as Docusign and Elemental Technologies.
In addition to individual angel investors, AoA also has a “Innovation Fund,” now in its fourth iteration. Those funds raised $1.3 million in 2022, $1.9 million in 2023, and over $2 million in 2024.
Several weeks into her role, Parker is gaining a broader understanding of AoA’s mission to help support entrepreneurship. Keep reading for our Q&A, edited for brevity and clarity.
What part of your background and experience helps make you most qualified to lead AoA?
Parker: I was born a helper, and joining the military was one facet of refining that while adding discipline and removing the fear of doing the unknown. I can learn anything and do anything if given the opportunity and training.
The excitement of running startups — learning and solving hard problems almost every day — is almost as exciting as being an aviator in the USAF. And now that I’ve well and truly proved I can run a startup, I wanted to move into the funding side to continue learning and helping founders.
I think I’m empathetic and curious, two key skills needed as a founder and funder —both to dig into customer discovery and to ask the right questions while withholding judgment.
What do you hope to help AoA achieve in the coming months and years at the helm?
Parker: Moving forward with AoA’s mission and rebranding and remaking it to fit the current era requires those skills above. I need them as I ask the hard questions of our members, founders (funded and not), and stakeholders.
“How do we stay true to our mission amid such market complexity and needs?”
“How do we change and grow with integrity and authenticity while growing and supporting entrepreneurship in the PNW?”
“What new challenges will we take on?”
“How are we perceived, and who do we want/need to interact with, and how to we enhance those relationships?”
“What’s true and compelling about the AoA? What are our core competencies, capabilities, and resources? Do we have what it takes to ‘gain and sustain’?”
I want to bring change, but it will be informed change. I’ll wear the founder hat and do my market research-informed customer discovery and build what is needed.
What’s your take on the region’s startup ecosystem overall right now?
Parker: Seattle always has deep roots in B2B SaaS, some CPG sprinkled in and life sciences. And I don’t think those are going away anytime soon, and that’s actually the focus of our angel investors as well, because they come from that same community.
It’s exciting. I’m hoping that we can have a stronger connection with UW. I think that’s a great university — I’m biased because I’m a grad, but I do want to see a more clear pipeline and linkage between AoA and local universities, because there’s great ideas that are coming out of there, and I want to support them as best we can. And I think that’s what the role of angel investors is, we are that first access to capital, if you will.
Are you inundated with AI-related pitches?
Parker: It’s pretty non-stop. But at this stage it’s table stakes. We’re seeing it in all of the life sciences startups, or most of them. We’re definitely seeing it in the B2B SaaS. We have a screening committee for AI in tech. They help to pre-screen and screen startups that come through … because it’s everywhere.
