Angel investment fell last year with people still cautious about investing in business start-ups.
The Young Company Finance Index shows investment fell to $27.6 million last year, nearly a fifth lower than in 2011, and only a quarter of that was in new investments.
Over the year 95 deals were done, compared with 100 in the prior year.
The average deal size was $300,000, and nearly 70% of all deals were $250,000 or less.
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund chief executive Francesca Banga said angel investors are tending to invest smaller amounts and are putting money into existing portfolio companies rather than start-ups.
She says like other parts of the investment market there is still a degree of caution in the context of New Zealand and the wider global economy.
Ms Banga says New Zealand angel investors are behaving very similarly to their counterparts offshore.
"Just being cautious, so smaller tranches of investment going into companies, taking time, acting professionally in making their investment decisions."
Ms Banga says software is still the biggest sector that angels are investing in and that would be expected given some good results across a number of New Zealand originated software companies.
She says there's also good investment across a range of sectors including health, medical and horticultural.