New angels don't get deal flow.
They get what's left.
Emerging Angels is the other path
Invest inside a top-10% fund - same deals, same table, same decisions - and learn the craft on live deals with our team every week.
The track record you'd want to learn from
1.86x
Unrealized MOIC, Fund I (as of Q2 2026)
41%
IRR, Fund I
Top 10%+
US VC firms
<0.03%
Portfolio Acceptance Rate
$300M+
Capital Deployed
$2.2B+
Raised by portfolio companies
540
Investments made
400+
Accredited investors in the network
Plenty of programs teach you the vocabulary of venture. Almost none put you in the room where real investment decisions get made - week after week, deal after deal.
The curriculum is the on-ramp, not the destination. What you're joining is a working circle of investors who source, diligence, and debate live deals together - inside a fund whose results put it in the top decile nationally.
Emerging Angels is built differently.
This is not a course. It's a seat at the table.
Not a course calendar - a working investor's calendar.
Live diligence calls
Tuesday-Thursday, 2-5 PM PT, our team runs live diligence with founders. Sit in, ask questions, and watch how we decide - why we say yes, and more importantly, why we say no.
Rolling pipeline
Diligence runs constantly, so decisions happen in weeks, not cycles. A live pipeline year-round - management, GTM, technology, financials - on the companies your capital backs.
Investment Circle
One evening a month: GPs, operators with exits, people with real perspective. Hot takes and honest conversation, not rehearsed theses.
The Slack
Deal chatter, market debates, intros, and questions answered by people who've written real checks. The conversation between sessions is half the value.
The Library
Every session recorded - Investment Circles, diligence calls, course sessions. Miss a week or travel for a month, lose nothing.
This is not a course. It's a seat at the table.
Why learn here?
Because the results are real.
You should judge any investing education by one question: would you want the track record of the person teaching you? Would you want the track record of the person teaching you?
Fund I currently stands at a 1.86x unrealized MOIC and a 41% IRR — the best-performing fund in the Tech Coast Angels group and top 10% of venture funds in the country.Two honest caveats, because we’d rather you hear them from us. These marks are unrealized — early-stage returns follow power-law dynamics, and it’s still early innings. And past performance guarantees nothing.
What it does tell you is how we work: Disciplined sourcing,Aggressive filtering,Transparency with our investors even when the news is mixed.
That’s the standard you’ll learn to.Start with the foundations —
eight weeks, live
New angels make a few investments, lose their money, and never invest again. We built the curriculum to break that pattern: eight weeks that take you from the mechanics of venture to thinking critically about every deal you’ll ever see.
Week 1: Startup vs Lifestyle & Growth Stages
Week 2: Demystifying VC, Fund Theory, Power Law
Week 3: Valuations & Investing
Week 4: Sourcing Deals & Growth Hacking
Week 5: Reviewing Deals
Week 6: Due Diligence: Management Team & Compensation
Week 7: Due Diligence: Go-To-Market, Technology & Financials
Week 8: Deal Terms & After Investment
Graduate, and the calendar above becomes yours — Investment Circle, weekly live diligence, the Slack, the rolling pipeline. The course ends. The education doesn’t.
How do you actually get good at this? You invest.
Interview
Membership is exclusive and not for everyone. We partner with leading angel organizations and hold every member to the highest standard of integrity — the quality of the room is the product.
Invest
You’ll invest a minimum of $25,000 into the fund, plus a $2,995 program fee for your first year — $1,000 a year after that. Most of that capital goes to work across ten investments — real diversification, real power-law exposure, and real stakes on every diligence call. You’re not simulating decisions. You’re a Limited Partner making them.
learn
Complete the course, then take your seat: monthly Investment Circle, weekly rolling diligence, and a network that compounds.Meet Your Instructor
Lucas Pols is the General Partner of 1752vc, where he leads investments at the intersection of AI enablement and go-to-market execution, with a focus on the middleware and application layers of AI. At 1752, Lucas backs startups at the inflection point — where traction meets acceleration — and has taught hundreds of angels how to invest through the Emerging Angels and Venture Fellow programs. He emphasizes high-signal sourcing, founder evaluation, and conviction-driven investing with a GTM-first lens.Previously, Lucas served as President of Tech Coast Angels and built a career as a top-performing Fortune 200 sales executive, driving national technology pilots and enterprise-scale innovation. He also hosts VC Unfiltered, where he explores the unvarnished truths of early-stage investing.Voices From the Program
Evan Gaul
Cohort 15
Sara Zolfaghari
Cohort 6
Amisha Kashyap
Cohort 15
Our Partnering Groups
Powerful partners, unmatched access.
Backed by a nationwide network of accredit investors, we bridge the gap between capital and innovation - helping founders achieve sustainable growth while empowering investors to support and scale game-changing startups.
Your experience is part of the fund’s edge
Our portfolio companies get more than capital — they get you. Members advise and mentor founders where their expertise fits, from GTM to hiring to industry access. It sharpens your judgment, deepens your network, and directly improves the odds on the companies you’re invested in. Aligned interests, compounding both ways.Ready to stop guessing?
The next generation of great companies is being built right now — under the radar, while the noise thins out. The investors who learn to see them early won’t do it alone.