Profiles of Angel Investors and Groups

 

This group has no paid staff, and doesn't even admit to having a physical location. Among members' investments are two quirky Inc. 500 firms: Web site-effectiveness-gauger Omniture, and online-genealogy-tracker MyFamily.com. Including simultaneous and follow-on VC investments, the portfolio has raised more than $200 million. Entrepreneurs send executive summaries via e-mail to the member expert in their field, they're posted on a private members area on the Web site, and the group meets once a month to see presentations from those who have garnered sufficient interest. The group prefers companies that already have some revenue. Members invest on an individual basis; on average about five will commit to a deal, and often small Utah VCs will invest at the same time.

Northwest

Alliance of Angels
Seattle
www.allianceofangels.com
Founded: 1998
Members: 85
Total amount invested: $18.7 million
Number of companies funded: 68
Who got money: Pacific Bioscience Laboratories

The Alliance is an outgrowth of the Technology Alliance, a network of businesses, research institutions, and trade associations that Bill Gates Sr. got going in 1996. Two MBA students on staff screen all the applications submitted via the Web site, and about a third are passed on to a screening committee that sees ten-minute presentations, followed by Q&A. The best three or four get to go to the full members' meeting, which happens 10 times a year. Individual members make their own decisions. Last year 14 members invested more than $700,000 in Pacific Bioscience Laboratories, which has developed the Clarisonic Skin Care Brush, an electronic device that cleans the skin using oscillating brushes on sonic frequencies. No exit yet, but a follow-on round was valued at twice the share price AoA members got.

National

Investors' Circle
Brookline, Massachusetts
www.investorscircle.net
(Read the full profile in the July issue of Inc. magazine.)

Keiretsu Forum
San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Santa Monica, Westlake Village, Long Beach, Hawaii, Calgary, Chicago, and Boston
www.keiretsuforum.com
(Read the full profile in the July 2005 issue of Inc. magazine.)

First Round Capital
West Conschohocken, Pennsylvania
www.firstround.com, www.demo.com
Founded: October 2004
Two principals
Total amount invested: $2 million
Number of companies funded: 6
Who got money: TurnTide Systems (From Kopelman and Morgan, prior to founding of First Round)

Josh Kopelman founded Half.com, an online seller of used books, movies, and music that was sold to eBay. Howard Morgan was a founding investor in tech incubator Idealab. He has personally invested $30 million in more than a hundred companies. The two have joined to form First Round, a seed-stage VC that will only invest in companies that are scheduled to present at DEMO, a twice-a-year technology conference now in its fifteenth year. Interested companies should apply to present at DEMO; if they get accepted, they can then approach First Round, which expects to make investments of $250,000-$500,000 in eight to 10 companies scheduled to present at the September show, with follow-ons of a similar amount. The two directors have already taken ten firms through this process with successful outcomes, including anti-spam company TurnTide Systems, which in six months brought them a return of more than 500% on their $1 million investment last year when it was sold to Symantec.

Technology Tree Group
Houston
www.technology-tree.com
(Read the full profile in the July issue of Inc. magazine.)

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