"It's often said that it's not how much money an entrepreneur needs to get going, but it's a question of whether it's the right kind. Bill Payne, who's one of our site's entrepreneur editors, is an expert and frequent speaker on angel capital and the myriad sources of entrepreneurial funding. Below is a snapshot of the world according to Payne in regard to funding for growth:

• When it comes to "friends, family, and fools," as Payne says it, the typical estimated investment round is $10K with each investor putting in $2K (and usually only making one to two investments over a lifetime). This is labeled "unsophisticated" investing.
• When it comes to angels, the typical estimated investment round is $400K with $40K coming from each investor. Payne calls angels "accredited, savvy" and they're active investors, willing to put in their time as advisers along with the money.
• For venture capital, a typical round is $7M with each investor potting $3M. This is the "institutional" level of equity investing wherein active general partners of a VC firm are the investors.

Where does Payne define the average funding gap for entrepreneurial growth companies? Answer: $1.5M to $4M level or the funding area that comes after seed/startup and precedes early and later stages.

Next question is: what motivates VC's and angels? For VC's, it's making money (the exit). For angels, it's more ROI, staying involved, and interest in seeing entrepreneurs succeed.

Next, when it comes to pitching your firm to angels, what is it these money guys are most interested in evaluating to decide whether to invest or not? The angel rating system looks like this: 30 percent of it all is the management team, 25 percent is size of opportunity, 10 percent is product or service, another 10 percent is sales channels followed by stage of business (and also includes size of current round, need for more funding, and quality of business plan)."