Jaclyn Johnson and Angeline Vuong were on a hike deliberating how hard it can be for people to get started in angel investing when they realized they had stumbled upon a startup idea. Today they are the co-founders of Cherub, a marketplace that pairs angel investors with entrepreneurs. Vuong spent nearly five years working in product and growth at Opendoor. Johnson founded Create & Cultivate, a media company for ambitious women, and had experienced both sides of the investing world — as a founder and an investor. Before starting Create & Cultivate, Johnson sold her own startup (No Subject) in 2016 and invested in numerous companies, including luggage company Away.

Johnson likens Los Angeles-based Cherub to Raya, an online membership-based community for dating, in that it matches founders and angel investors based on their preferences.

"You can go to this platform as an entrepreneur and you can go on the platform as an angel investor and get access to both people and express interest based on tags," she said in an interview with TechCrunch. "So for instance, if I go on the app and I'm interested in women-owned businesses in the CPG space doing their Series A or something specific, I'll get surface deal flow that is the highest match to what I'm looking for."

Cherub is free for investors to use and charges startups via a membership model. A $480/year membership lets founders list their companies in the directory and includes analytics such as how many people viewed their deck. The Cherub Select membership costs $950 a year and involves a more vetted process to show the company more actively to investors, Johnson said.

Johnson said that Cherub also helps founders find incubators and accelerators and has partnerships with the associated incubators of firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Dream Ventures, and New York Fashion Tech Lab.

Of course, Cherub is not the only platform teaming up angels with entrepreneurs. AngelList is the biggest and best known. Israeli crowdsourcing firm OurCrowd is also huge, and then there are the ones offered by venture firms, like Hustle Squad's Angel Squad for accredited investors, or others like Jason Calacanis' The Syndicate.

AngelList is more of a B2B platform, very tech industry-centric, and is best for those who already have knowledge or experience in startup investing and can afford to invest fairly sizable amounts, in Johnson's view. Then there's crowdsourcing Wefunder or Republic, which will allow investors to invest tiny amounts, sometimes as little as $100, which Johnson describes as "the Kickstarter of angel investing."

Cherub sits in the middle, she says. For instance, like traditional VC firms, the company hosts founder-funder mixers. Last year, for example, Cherub teamed up with Sophia Amoruso's Trust Fund to host a cocktail party at which every single thing on site was investable, such as the drinks being served and featuring a pop-up shop where guests could shop any products that they want to test drive.

Angel investor Allen Orr told TechCrunch that he had used other platforms such as AngelList in the past. 'However, I felt that it was not a very personal experience and felt too transactional,' he told TechCrunch via email. 'What appealed to me about Cherub was the idea of a tailored and social approach to investing,' he said, adding 'I also liked that there are opportunities not just for investment but also advising brands.'

Maggie Rose Macar, founder and CEO of mental health support app Zant, said an investor wrote a $25,000 check into her company after it was featured in one of the earliest versions of Cherub's newsletters and after she met the investor in person at one of Cherub's events. 'I think Cherub does a great job at bringing active investors into the room with founders who are looking,' she told TechCrunch.

Cherub has raised $1.25 million of its own, naturally from angels, including Drybar's Alli Webb and Blavity's Morgan DeBaun, among others.