Steve Mock, the founder and CEO of GiftVenture, was recently interviewed on Frank Peters's podcast. Giftventure is a new offering to make giving a gift to a child much more interesting. Steve applied to Vegas Valley Angels in Las Vegas through Angelsoft - since GiftVenture is located in Nevada. Frank Peters of Tech Coast Angels went to Las Vegas, saw this deal and brought it back to TCA in Los Angeles. The TCA members loved this deal so much, one said, "I want the best deals, I don't care where they are from."
This is a deal that would have otherwise been overlooked by TCA because the company is not located in Southern California - yet it turned out to be a perfect deal for their membership.
Angelsoft makes co-investing with other early-stage investment groups easy, wherever they may be located. VC's, Angel Groups, and other groups across the globe are all using the power of this shared back end system to accelerate and find the best deals — period — and make sure that those deals are getting funded.
Frank Peters put it best: "I gained an insight into just what collaborating on deals via Angelsoft could mean to the future of angel investing." The thinking now is as long as a trusted, local group has some skin in the game, groups from outside the region are more and more willing to participate. For the most part, an outside group will need a local group to run due diligence anyway. At Angelsoft, we are delighted that more groups are using our platform to connect and invest across a much wider region than ever before.
Rachael Qualls, Founder and General Manager of the Angel Capital Group in Tennessee, sat down recently with Marc Krejci of Patrons of Change, a refreshing new podcast devoted to a range of topics including entrepreneurship, technology, philanthropy and other important issues.
Rachael provides valuable insight into the mind of an angel investor. She discusses how her group got started, ways entrepreneurs can reach out to her angels, and the steps they go through when deciding which companies to invest in.
In addition, Rachael reveals how the group uses Angelsoft to track and collaborate on deals. Rachael is extremely enthusiastic about what she and her group are doing and adds that she is having a ball doing it! Rachael, if we can in some way help facilitate funding ideas that may one day change the world, then we are happy to do our part!
Entrepreneurs interested in applying to the Angel Capital Group, click here and follow the instructions.
You can also subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes as soon as they are released.
About Patrons of Change:
Patrons of Change is a podcast exploring topics including entrepreneurship, technology, philanthropy, social justice, the environment and other issues affecting our world and ways that we can make an impact.
We congratulate Stephanie Hanbury-Brown for winning the 2008 Hans Severiens Award at the ACA Summit in San Diego. Stephanie is the founder of GoldenSeeds, which invests in women-led and women-run organizations. This award is quite prestigeous in the angel investment community and Stephanie is truly worthy of the award in how she has not only promoted and advanced angel investing for women, but the angel investing community as a whole.
Stephanie had the following comments on her experience with Angelsoft:
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.
Almost a month ago, I sat down on the phone with Eric Rosenfeld, manager and co-founder of the Oregon Angel fund (OAF), to learn more about the early stage community in Portland. Eric is what you can call "heavily involved" in the early stage investing. Aside from OAF, he sits on the board of the Oregon Entrepreneurs network, and is a member of the Portland Angel Network, the Portland Venture Group, and the Oregon Sustainability Angels. On top of all that he still manages to find time to manage Capybara Ventures.
Now, for our chat:
EB: How would you describe the early-stage venture community in the Portland area?
ER: I would say on the investors side of things, that Portland is highly organized and extremely collaborative given its size. The Oregon entrepreneur network has been instrumental in putting a lot of the pieces in place. There are many options for investors, as there are many different groups and models to get involved with. There are Angel funds, Angel networks, and even a yearly venture competition. There are over 55 investors in the 2008 Oregon Angel Fund and we'll shoot to invest $2.4m in 4 Oregon companies over the next 9 months.
Liddy Karter, board member of the ACA, Executive Director of The Angel Investor Forum in Hartford, Connecticut, and member of Golden Seeds, was featured on Frank Peters' podcast this week. She had a lot of very positive comments about Angelsoft, as well as angel investing in general. The Frank Peters' show is always very educational listening, but this week in particular, had a lot of very interesting discussion.
Listen here or go to the posting on Frank's site here. We have also transcribed the text of the Angelsoft comments below:
Liddy Karter: We have just adopted something that I think you are looking at, Frank, we have just adopted Angelsoft. Frank Peters: That's right, yeah Liddy: And, in fact, one of the main reasons we adopted it, is I was under the impression that you guys [Tech Coast Angels] were adopting it or looking at it in any case. FP: Yeah, we are looking at it very seriously. In fact, I've got an implementation plan on my desk. I'm just working out the details of how we cut over. Liddy: We had developed an in-house system on the Microsoft SharePoint platform. It was very similar to Angelsoft. Maybe not quite as slick, but very similar. The big thing we weren't doing easily was sharing our information with other Angel groups. FP: That is the big advantage isn't it... syndication. Liddy: It's THE big advantage. Syndication. We're getting referrals from other angel groups and its all right there. Our entrepreneurs are happy because they feel that investing the time to put their data in is worthwhile because it's going to get shared beyond our group [Hartford's Angel Investor Forum] which has approximately 70 members full-time and another 100 or so that are kind-of circling around the periphery so maybe they contact 170 angels by talking to us, but by going into Angelsoft, when we are doing a deal we know we can only put in a couple of hundred thousand and they are looking for a million, we immediately syndicate it to other groups that we're comfortable with, and its seamless for the entrepreneur to do that. Liddy: I recommend it. FP: So, you recommend Angelsoft. What's been the surprise after you get started with Angelsoft. Any surprises? Liddy: Well, there is one. We had been told by a couple of other angel groups, that their members weren't able or willing to use Angelsoft and so it was really for the group leaders. But that has NOT been our experience. Our members are all over this thing! In fact, I looked yesterday. You can tell the last time a person has logged on. Our members are logging on every couple of days to just check out new deals, rate them, rank them. It's really surprising. FP: So, no user ambivalence. Adoption has met your expectations, it sounds like? Liddy: It actually exceeded them. And it has helped our process because it's much easier now for me to send out notices and to track who's responded and that sort of thing. I was using a system called Constant Contact for that, for newsletters and things and now I just use Angelsoft. So it's really been a great help just consolidating our process and communication flow. FP: Well great, Liddy, your comments will help me. … I'll get your comments around to the leadership here at Tech Coast Angels. We're keen to do it too. Liddy: Well, it will help your entrepreneurs too. It will. FP: We pass almost every deal we do to the Pasadena Angels. Right now...it doesn't sound like much...but it IS. An entrepreneur, who is already really busy, has to make an application to the two places. Eliminating one of those would be a great advantage for them. Liddy. I wish, and I believe, that our community can start getting a lot closer. For instance, we just looked at a deal … which was interesting, but it was in San Diego. … I was interested, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to pass them off to you guys, and [I gave them a name and told them to go talk to him]. If you had been on Angelsoft, I would have just clicked and said "OK, Check this out." FP: We could have been looking at it the same day. Liddy: Exactly. FP: Instead, we've got some sort of inertia curve with the entrepreneur probably.. We have to get his attention, and entice him to apply. Liddy: What I find interesting about the evolution of the Angel Community, is that the regional dominance of a couple of angel groups, maybe not in Boston or Silicon Valley, but certainly where we are [Hartford, Connecticut] which is not as densly populated with venture capitalists … but when you get down to our size deals, it's pretty thin – and I think that's probably the case in 90% of the country. So, when you've got an active angel group that is part of the Angel Capital Association, they become almost the gate keeper for these entrepreneurs, meaning that if that group passes, it's a problem for that company if they need to get financing from another group. So, when I saw [the deal referred above], my first question was, "Have you talked to the Tech Coast Angels?" Go talk to them first and maybe we will look at it later. We all have to recognize that role. That we are vetting deals potentially all over the country – and I think we have always thought of our role as working with our particular members, but I think that's going to change. The whole syndication process will be much more active because of Angelsoft and a shared platform.
RAIN SOURCE® CAPITAL UNVEILS WEB TOOLS FOR RAIN ANGEL NETWORK
RAIN Angel Network To Use Angelsoft® For Funding Local Entrepreneurs
FEBRUARY 1, 2008, ST. PAUL, MN: RAIN Source® Capital, manager of the country's largest network of angel funds, announces a collaboration with Angelsoft to manage deal flow and member communication. The RAIN network's adoption of the Angelsoft® Internet-based platform will make it easy for entrepreneurs to apply for funding and gives the RAIN Funds’ accredited investors a comprehensive set of tools for analyzing new opportunities and collaborating both within and between the local RAIN funds.
RAIN Source Capital's RAIN Funds provide early stage investments to start-up companies in amounts up to $3 million, with each fund having a specific focus chosen by its members. RAIN funds are currently active in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, with the network rapidly expanding to other states.
“Collaborating among all of the RAIN funds with the Angelsoft platform will help us continue to grow our network of funds, improve our due diligence and communication, and ultimately fund the best new companies," said Steven Mercil, President and CEO of RAIN Source Capital. "The RAIN network's hallmark has always been our proprietary, detailed due diligence process for analyzing new investments, and Angelsoft will go far toward streamlining our collaboration, putting all the necessary information right at the fingertips of all of our investors."
The Angelsoft platform, which will be used by the RAIN network's more than 400 investor members, gives entrepreneurs the tools to develop streamlined, one-page descriptions of their businesses for submission to RAIN Fund investors, and then delivers that information over the Internet directly into the RAIN Source Capital deal management system.
Every angel member of every RAIN Fund in the network has instant, secure access to business plans as they arrive. Once in the system, angel investors and fund managers can organize the entire deal flow process from screening all the way through investment and ultimately exits for the businesses in which they invest.
The Angelsoft platform was developed by New York-based Angelsoft LLC with input from RAIN Source Capital and other large angel organizations. “Adding the 19 RAIN funds to the more than 275 angel groups worldwide that are already connected through the Angelsoft platform is a major benefit for everyone,” said David S. Rose, founder and CEO of Angelsoft. “The organizations using Angelsoft comprise the leading angel groups, funds and networks across the globe, and the RAIN funds will now be able to work seamlessly with others of the world's top angels to bring more smart money into more strong deals.”
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About RAIN Source Capital: RAIN Source Capital (www.rainsourcecapital.com) is a multi-state network of RAIN funds that works with angel investors who are interested in supporting growing companies. RAIN Source helps bring together like-minded angel investors to form individual RAIN funds - and then provides these funds with capital, legal templates, a process for due diligence, management support, access to deal flow and other resources. RAIN funds share expertise, deals and experience between and among RAIN Source Capital’s multi-state network. RAIN funds range in size from seven to 61 members, who have pooled from $500,000 to $2 million, and the network currently has invested more than $25 million in 43 companies.
About Angelsoft: Angelsoft (www.angelsoft.net) is the largest provider of solutions for early-stage investing worldwide. Angel investment groups and networks, venture capital firms, business incubators and entrepreneurs on six continents rely on Angelsoft every day to facilitate deal flow. Its award-winning web-based collaboration tools make it easy for seed-stage investment groups to coordinate and process their deal-flow, all the way from initial contact, screening, and due-diligence and ultimately through funding and beyond. Angelsoft is used by over 275 of the world's largest angel groups; processes thousands of business plans for entrepreneurs each month; and is the exclusive software provider to European Business Angel Network, the British Business Angels Association, and the Canadian National Angel Organization.
Wisconsin Angel Network, which helps entrepreneurs make connections with investors, is implementing Angelsoft, an angel group management software product designed to help angel networks manage their deal flow and collaborate on investments. The product is used by a variety of angel networks in the United States and worldwide.
Kremer believes the product will help connect angel networks along the “IQ Corridor,” which stretches from Chicago, and through Milwaukee, Madison, and Northwestern Wisconsin to the Twin Cities."
