As an angel investor, I can anecdotally confirm that I've become more cautious recently (in the last year, really). However, I'm not at all concerned about the stock market. That has never influenced my decision to fund a company. My belief is that a strong company can weather a bear market.

I'm concerned with the current state of valuations - I enjoy giving investments to companies on the order of five figures or so each with the hope that they make something meaningfully impactful. I don't necessarily look for them to become moonshot successful; a win can be much smaller than that. Developing incrementally impressive technology that effects change is also a win.

But valuations are so frothy right now that it's difficult to tell the strong companies from the ones that won't survive "when the tide goes out." It all seems very clear in hindsight, but it's hard to know right now, even moreso than usual. This is always very difficult, but the market for ideas has become somewhat "congested."

There has been a flood of folks entering the "startup game" who seem to be planning for their IPO before they've even gotten a product off the ground. Again, anecdotally, I'm observing a noticeable increase in fraud among founders who are trying to raise money unscrupulously, especially with novice investors.

I don't like to use the word bubble because I think it's lazy analysis, but I do strongly believe valuations are in the beginning of a market correction. At the very least, I think there will be a higher bar for invested money to indicate a legitimate valuation instead of a loan.

I do think that there will still be plenty of capital ready to be given to companies, investors are just going to be more selective (read: cautious) about it, which may very well change the growth and success potential of certain more dubious business models in the valley.