The Importance of Robust Angel Ecosystems
Earlier this week I gave the keynote address at the Colorado Angel Capital Summit. While the audience was Colorado focused, the overall message I delivered about the angel ecosystem is very relevant to all entrepreneurial communities. I thought I’d share both the presentation and the key thoughts here. The overall trend around angel investing is a pretty interesting one. I’ve talked about this trend before – specifically the acceleration of angel investing in 2011-2014. I think what we’re really seeing here is market excitement around angel investing leading to a quick surge, followed by (I hope) a more normal and sustained level of activity. The sharp rise in angel activity also coincided with the raise of platforms such as AngelList which more easily allowed investors to find interesting companies and to some extent broadened the geographic reach of angels, extending what had been a more localized activity. If you’ve ever participated in a running or cycling race your heart rate graph probably looked similar – you’re excited at the start of the race and go out a bit strong, only to settle back into the right rhythm. I suspect that’s a bit of what we’re seeing here. …
March 17, 2016· 5 min read
Syndicate Funding on AngelList – A Company’s Perspective
A few months ago AngelList announced Syndicates – enabling investors on AngelList to create fund-like groups of investors to invest together in AngelList companies (following a single lead investor). It’s a great idea and at Foundry we quickly decided it would be an interesting experiment to form our own syndicate. We were the first formal venture fund to do this. Since then we’ve completed about 10 deals (I say “about” because we have a few things in various stages of completion as I write this – the intent of FG Angels is to make 50 AngelList investments – about 1 per week). …
May 21, 2014· 15 min read