When trying to raise capital for your business is it better to use a venture capital fund or an angel investor

It's very hard to get capital from either one of these sources, and really they're just semantic differences of saying the same thing. A venture capital firm/fund is a company that makes its money by investing in up-and-coming businesses. Of course, investing in up-and-comers is extremely risky, so the venture capital firm will likely expect a whole lot of concessions from the company that they're investing in (perhaps even a majority stake in the company.) The good thing about venture capital firms is that they're very interested in seeing you succeed and will likely lend a lot of expertise and resources to the business they're buying into. Still, the amount of concessions they extract from companies can be daunting.

An angel investor is someone who does basically the same thing. The only reason they're called an "angel investor" is because they generally give money to a firm that's in distress to help them get out of trouble. Of course, "give" is a misleading term; they're not doing it to be nice. They'll probably expect an ownership stake/other concessions, just like a venture capital firm.

Basically, it's two ways of saying the same thing. The only difference is that a venture capitalist gives money to a company that's on the rise in exchange for an ownership stake, while an angel investor gives money to a company that's in decline in exchange for an ownership stake. It's all situational.