Just like the beneficent, supernatural spirits from which we take our name, angel investors have an aura of mystery, largely perceived as invisible bestowers of financial gifts on fledgling companies.

Such a view was not far from reality in the early days of angel investment. The venture capital industry is only 60 years old. Nowadays, Angel networks and organisations, such as LINC Scotland, have a higher profile, more visibility and greater importance in the financial mix. They are also becoming more organised.

Today I will be speaking in Berlin at the Business Angels Europe conference on Angel Investment Research. This is hugely significant as it is the first time there has been an international academic gathering dedicated to business angel investing. It was to an extent prompted by figures released by EBAN (a European Trade Association for Business Angels)maintaining that, in 2012, €5 billion was invested by business angels in Europe. Many of us were curious to know how they arrived at this number without asking us what we had done. It may be based on an extrapolation of 2010 data that suggested the UK visible angel investment amounted to £18m, when Scotland alone hit £24m. There must be a better way to do this.

Scotland punches above its weight when it comes to angel investment and the LINC Scotland model has been used as a basis to set up other angel organisations throughout the world. The angel market, relative to the scale of the country, is more important pro rata in Scotland than anywhere else outwith a few states in the United States. A report last week on investment in Wales revealed £3.5m of angel investment in 2012 compared to £30m in Scotland. Scotland has 1.6 times the number of businesses but seven times the investment, largely down to how the angels are organised into groups rather than syndicates or public sector managed networks.

The 30 academics and researchers in angel investment from Europe's top institutions gathered in Berlin today will look to develop a co-ordinated approach to gathering research and data on the angel market throughout Europe.

Surprisingly, very little data exists on how successful angel investments are. We have swathes of information on "input": how groups are organised, what they do and how much money has been invested, but the hard bit, the 'output' measurements on financial returns, job creation and exits, is missing.

These are needed not just to better understand opportunities and risk, but to provide a credible baseline on which to build policy and practice at EU or national level, increase the potential for cross-border investment and attract more individuals into this sector. Critically, if we knew more about what drives successful investments we would be able to help more business survive and grow.

However, I would add a few words of caution about being driven by numbers. First, calculating accurate returns at an individual investor level is extremely difficult where you may have dozens of investors investing different amounts into the same company over many years. Secondly, if angel investing become only about chasing the best return, there is a danger investment will disappear over the internet to a few perceived "hot spots" such as San Francisco, New York or London, leaving entrepreneurs elsewhere starved of capital once again.

People like myself became business angels because we want to invest our capital and knowledge into local businesses with the potential to make a significant economic difference. If we can have fun and make some money along the way, even better. I put a few quid into Oregon Timber 15 years ago. It is now one of the biggest employers in the Borders and this has been hugely satisfying.

If angel investing is treated as only another asset class or tax incentivised investment scheme in which financial return becomes the sole reason for investment, there will be a danger angels will lose their souls.