Reprinting an answer I wrote to the following question on Quora:
Is raising money from SV Angel the same as raising money from Ron Conway?
No. And Yes.
Ron is a Special Advisor to SV Angel. This means that he is not involved with day-to-day operations at all. He is not a General Partner. He is a limited partner, which means he is an investor in the funds like hundreds (literally) of others.
He directs all of his deal flow to SV Angel. He does his angel investments through SV Angel by being an LP. So technically, he is in the same bucket as all of our other investors – ie, investor in these companies through SV Angel.
That said, we lean on him as much as we can to get low touch/high impact business advice. It has been beyond invaluable for me to get his quick insights on situations and companies because he has seen every movie before. So in that regard, raising money from SV Angel is how you get Ron’s resources and time.
He specializes in “high impact” inflection points for SV Angel portfolio companies. If we are the primary care physicians, then he is the brain surgeon. If we are Vincent Vega, then he is The Wolf (see “Pulp Fiction”). Some companies may never meet Ron. He may never know that SV Angel is an investor. But if and when they need brain surgery, he will be their brain surgeon.
We have used this approach since 2009. We’ve found it’s the most leveraged way to use Ron’s time and resources.