Fondly Remembering Tom Alberg

Tom was my friend.  Many others have commented on his impact on the Seattle ecosystem – as a lawyer, a VC, and a valued board member.  Behind this was his passion for the Pacific Northwest and his vision of how to make it better.

I’m not sure that Tom fully understood the broad impact that he had on the direction …
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Ukrainian Repost

Sometimes funny things happen in the world of angel investing and entrepreneurial companies.  I was contacted by Andrew Sheludenkov of the publication Medium who asked to translate and repost one of my blog posts, the one on JoyLux.  I granted permission.  Since I don’t speak Ukrainian, I hope the translation is accurate!

Here is the link: https://medium.com/temy-ukraine/%D0%B3%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BF-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%82-%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D1%82-%D0%B7-joylux-c68d134fa24 

Since I find …
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Startup Hero – Colette Courtion of Joylux

Colette Courtion founded Joylux (www.joylux.com) in 2016 after she became a mother and experienced both the joys of motherhood and the consequence of incontinence that results from childbearing. She had previously founded a skincare company and decided to apply some of the technologies that help skin look younger to a more intimate health problem—sexual health—that not only is …
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Leadership for the Pandemic and the New Normal

The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused every startup to assess how to survive and plan to thrive in the “new normal.” No one knows what the new normal will look like, but based on other jolts to our economic system, we do know that life after this pandemic will be different than life before – at least for a while.  Just …
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How Startups Survive the COVID-19 Economic Crisis

Iceland Sunrise and Sunset

Author: Dan Rosen

To: All angel investors and their portfolio CEOs

Being trained as a scientist, and having lived through several investment cycles, I’ve been asked to share my perspective on the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on startups.

I firmly believe that the human and societal impact of COVID-19 will be extreme, …
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General Solicitation

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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SkyCast – the cooler path to in-flight entertainment

Occasionally, you see a deal where you immediately understand both how cool it is and the impact that it will have on an industry. Couple that with one that will also have an impact on you personally and a great team, and you have SkyCast Solutions.

Founded by the inventor of the digEplayer (if you fly Alaska as much as …
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AppAttach – Serving the long tail

I recently invested in AppAttach (http://www.appattach.com/about), an online marketplace for device manufacturers (OEMs) to find and sign up software vendors (ISVs) and receive a bounty the way the very largest hardware OEMs do.

It’s widely known that software preinstallation has become key to profitability for consumer electronic device manufacturers, but whether it’s major OEM bundling an antivirus application …
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Virticus Acquired by LSI

One of my AoA portfolio companies was acquired today by LSI Industries. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/lsi-industries-inc-announces-acquisition-of-virticus-corporation-20120319-00192

Virticus is an integrated set of products and services that reduce energy and maintenance costs by 30-50% through a communication and control system that allows the management of lights individually and collectively. It is a cost-effective solution that scales from 10 lights in a church parking lot …
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