Author: Dan Rosen
To: The Angel Community
After publishing my companion piece, “How Startups Survive the COVID-19 Economic Crisis,” I have received a number of comments about how this impacts angels and angel investing. Here are my thoughts.
Unlike VCs, who …
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Once again, through inadvertent action, the federal government is about to threaten Angel Investing. This all started as a way to increase investment in startups, when congress passed, and the Obama signed the JOBS Act (see: http://blog.drosenassoc.com/?p=97). Title II of the JOBS Act allows “General Solicitation and Advertising” of private placements (like Angel deals). One would think this is …
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My friend, Bill Carleton, posted a very thoughtful blog on Crowdfunding and angel investing: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/angels-crowds
Bill has teed up some excellent questions. See my response.
While you should definitely read the entire post, here is brief excerpt:
Crowding out angels from startup financings?
March 3, 2012 at 1:52 pm by William Carleton
As early as next week, we may know …
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To outside observers, it sometime seems that investors are very lucky when they get an exit and make a spectacular return. Those of us who invest regularly in startups, and then take an active role, know that there is a great deal more than luck involved. It’s really hard to have a startup survive to get to exit. There is …
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Crowdfunding is about to be approved by Congress and signed into law by the President. For those unfamiliar with the concept, you can read Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding) or simply put it is raising money for startups, typically via the Internet, in small chunks from people who may never meet with or diligence the company. Crowdfunding has been used in …
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Should entrepreneurs be asked to pay angels and angel groups for the opportunity to present their business?
As the seed stage/angel asset class becomes more prominent and popular, this becomes an ever more frequent question. There was a blow up about a year ago when Jason Calacanis took on the Keiretsu Forum and the amount they charged early stage companies. …
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Carve outs for management is a tool that is often overlooked by boards in angel-backed companies. It is a tool that can be a critical in making an acquisition occur, but is difficult to get right. First of all, both management and the board are often too close and emotionally involved to make a clear decision.
For those that aren’t …
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Many entrepreneurs, when they take outside money into their company, want to protect themselves. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The investors putting the first money into the deal also want some protection, especially when the founders own a vast majority of the overall stock and probably have a majority of the board seats.
One of the items …
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In my previous post, I noted that the AoA had a great year in 2010. (http://blog.drosenassoc.com/?p=61 or the full release http://drosenassoc.com/AoA%20results%202-23-11.pdf)
Typically, most angel groups or VCs see about 25-40% of their deals die in the first 4 years. (This is called the J curve, since the portfolio value goes negative for the first 3-5 years and gets …
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Not much surprises me these days, particularly during this mud-slinging political campaign season.
However, Marcelo Calbucci’s Tech Flash post (http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/have_we_killed_the_angel_investor.html) did. How my posts could be so misunderstood by someone I respect baffles me, especially when that misunderstanding is posted to a widely read blog.
My previous post on Angels forming LLCs for their investments IS entrepreneur friendly, …
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