Yi-Jian Ngo, a fixture of the Seattle startup community and longtime leader of the Alliance of Angels, is stepping down from the angel investor group.
Ngo will depart to spend more time looking after his family. Maren Nelson, a board member at AoA, has taken on the interim executive director role.
Founded in 1998 under the umbrella of the Technology Alliance, AoA spun out of the nonprofit in 2012.
Ngo joined AoA a year earlier, after stints with AT&T and Microsoft. Under his leadership, AoA has grown its membership from 60 to 180 people and now invests $4 million to $6 million in startups each year.
Its investors 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.
AoA is raising its third annual “Innovation Fund,” a more structured investment vehicle the group launched in 2022. It raised $1.3 million for the initial fund and $1.9 million for the second fund.
