It depends on the family. Hell, I drop a couple thou a year helping my retired mother financially, as she has zero money and zero sense with whatever little money she gets. My family has always been dirt poor (and those who are still dirt poor look enviously and somewhat resentfully on me and my one sister who also achieved a comfortable middle class life).

My wife's family, on the other hand, is solidly upper middle class all around. Her grandfather worked from a Kansas dust bowl Depression childhood to a Harvard MBA and probably several million in net worth. Several of them are "qualified investors" in the legal sense and could angel-fund a startup.

But I won't ask them for a cent, not even take it if it was offered. Why? Because they're family, and not blood family at that. If I took investment money from them and it failed, I would be paying for it in non-financial ways for the rest of my life, and my wife would be paying even worse. Even asking would be a tremendous misstep of the delicate dance of family.

So yeah, even if Grammaw and Uncle Barry have twenty grand to invest doesn't mean there's anything "casual" about it.