This is a well deserved award. Having worked with Frank a lot this past year, I would have to agree with the selection. Frank certainly knows how to get things done for the best impact. I appreciate his attention to win-win solutions.
Not sure if you want to apply to OPENdeals? No problem. You can still get an industry standard PDF one-pager for free. Print it out and hand it to investors or email it to your Angel contacts.
It looks like this:
Angelsoft has become the standard in the Angel investing industry, and so has the PDF one-pager that is produced when an entrepreneur fills out the funding application. Many Angels won't even look at a deal unless you hand it to them in this format. What's great about the one-pager is that it distills down for an investor exactly what your company does, and it helps you focus your message. Our funding application is the result of years of research to find out exactly what Angels need to know.
Are you ready for funding? If so, fill out the application and you'll be on your way.
Last Friday we provisioned a new group onto Angelsoft. We realized on Monday that they were not an Angel investment group, but rather a service provider to entrepreneurs. This was our misunderstanding and not theirs.
Angelsoft is strictly for active investors, Angel groups, and VCs. As a result we had to remove them from the system. Before being removed, they had posted a Group Deal to OPENdeals, and we want to apologize for any confusion that caused.
We have been very stringent about who is given access Angelsoft to ensure that when you are using the paltform to colaboarate, it is only among accredited investors. If you are ever feel that a group is on the Angelsoft platform that should not be, please contact us at support@angelsoft.net.
One of the toughest steps in the investment process is getting back to the entrepreneur to let them know that your group is not going to proceed with their funding request. It can be an emotionally charged situation, and because there are so many more deals out there than capital to fund them, it has to be a regular part of your investment group's activity.
If we look at the positive side of turning down a funding request, we see that many groups use this as an opportunity to provide feedback to the entrepreneurs. Its a critical part of the process where the investors are able to give something valuable back to the entrepreneur, and an opportunity to set them on the path to finding funding from another source or possibly from that group at a later date.
To help with this process we've added the ability to send a "declined email" to the entrepreneur.
Take a look at the tutorial below and let us know what you think!
1) Select the deal or deals you would like to decline
Check the box next to the name of the deal, or check the boxes next to the name of all the deals you would like to decline. This feature works in bulk.
So, you have a deal with some serious interest from your group, but not enough to do the full round. This is a great opportunity for you to leverage the Angelsoft network, and get connected to other investment groups nearby. With a couple simple steps, you can post your deal to Open Deals, making a preview available to other Angelsoft users, so they can contact you to discuss the potential of co-investing.
Nothing more than a preview will be shared, and once you are contacted you can still decide how you would like to proceed with this group. Its a very fast and efficient way to find more capital, and a huge value you can offer the entrepreneurs applying to your group.
Angelsoft is the exclusive online software platform used by the Angel investment industry to mange deal flow. It allows Angel groups to accept online submissions from entrepreneurs, manage those submissions, and collaborate between investors to do a deal. If you are applying for angel funding, chances are your deal will be done in Angelsoft.
During your funding search, you have likely found that the Angel industry is scattered and hard to find. It took us four years to form the relationships, and we are excited to say that the industry now uses Angelsoft as their standard platform. Right now that’s an impressive 400 groups, and we are hitting the limits on the number of new groups left to signup.
What this means for you as an entrepreneur is that there is a single place, a common application, and a standardized way to apply for funding. This is the largest resource of Angel stage capital that has ever been assembled, and we made it available to you with OPENdeals.
We were able to accomplish this by forming a personal relationship with the General Manager of each Angel group that uses our system. We know them by name, and speak to them regularly. Their feedback has allowed us to build a system that manages 1,000 new submissions a month from entrepreneurs and receives 600 logins a day from investors.
Our goal is to make the process of early stage funding frictionless. We would like to form a closer relationship with you, the entrepreneur, to find out what we can do to improve. Tell us about your needs and the experience you have with our software, and we will do our best to address them.
You have submitted your application to OPENdeals and now you want to know what happens. Here is the rundown.
Once you have submitted your application you will be brought to the Application Manager.
From here you can see the number of investors that have viewed your deal.
If an investor is interested, they will refer it into their Angel group’s Angelsoft account for review. Angelsoft is used by most of the worlds Angel groups to manage ALL their deals, not just the ones from Open-deals. If you are going to work with an Angel group, chances are your deal will be done in Angelsoft.
When an investor refers your deal into their groups Angelsoft account, the General Manager is notified by email. That deal shows up at the top of the New Submissions list which is the first thing that the members of the group will see the next time they log in.
You will be notified by email of the referral. When you log into the Application Manager you will see that you have a new section for this group.
A deal specific email address is included. This allows you to communicate with the investor that referred your deal along with the General Manager of the group. As your deal progresses, you will continue to use this email to communicate with all interested investors.
Over the past few weeks we've received a number of questions from Entrepreneurs asking us what OPENdeals looks like to Angels. While we wish we could let you in to take a look around, we need to keep it restricted to SEC accredited investors.
What we can do is give you a peak behind the scenes of what OPENdeals looks like to Angels
The Main Page
Angels can use this page to quickly see:
How many deals have been submitted by entrepreneurs in the last 24 hours
Deals posted from other Angel groups. Angel groups often would like to invest in a company, but do not have enough interest from their group to provide the total amount that the entrepreneur is looking for. When this happens they post to OPENdeals letting other Angels know that they are looking for additional investors.
How many deals are in the Angels local vicinity
Deal Directory
The Deal Directory is where investors can browse through submitted deals by options such as date, location, number of views, and industry.
Summary Information
On the Deal Directory each company includes summary information.
This includes:
Company name
The number of views the deal has received (you can also see this number when you log into Angelsoft)
The rating other investors have given the deal
Whether or not a video is included
The One Line Pitch
Industry
A Deal
Each deal is displayed in a standardized format that Angels are familiar with from their personal Angelsoft accounts.
The answers to your questions are listed in the main section. Your companies vitals such as Management and Financial Information are listed in the side bar off to the right.
The video is available to watch as the investor reads through your application
Your documents are available for download. A PDF of your application is automatically generated for the investor to print out (You can also download this PDF by clicking on Preview in your application)
When An Investor Is Interested
If an investor is interested in a deal they can refer it into their own group for further review. At this point you will be notified.
The launch of Open Deals was announced by David S. Rose at SXSW. Since the announcement entrepreneurs have been busy filling out their applications to take advantage of this new funding resource.
If you missed his announcement, here's the rundown. Over 400 groups worldwide use Angelsoft to mange their deal flow. If you have applied to an Angel Group online in the past, you probably already have an Angelsoft account.
Up until now, entrepreneurs would need to go to each Angel Groups website to apply. We received hundreds of emails from entrepreneurs asking us, “How can I access ALL of the Angel Groups that use Angelsoft”
We decided to respond with Open Deals. The short explanation is that it allows you to get your company in front of all 400 groups and 6000 Angels at once.
When you apply to Open Deals, your application is posted in a section of Angelsoft that is available to all of the Angels that use our system.
When the Angels click on a deal they are presented with the application you filled out along with your video pitch. If an Angel is interested in a deal they can “refer” that deal into their own group for review. Check your Application Manager to see how many views your application has received and if it has been referred into any groups.
Angelsoft has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Financial Services category in the 12th Annual Webby Awards.
The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to work that scores in the top 15% of all work entered into the Webby Awards. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for the company.
Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet and represents the "best of the Web." Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.
