Angel Investing in the Year of Ox

Let’s all celebrate, the Chinese New Year (CNY) is around the corner, the start of the Year of Ox on January 26, 2009. Besides the partying and the festivities that always accompany the CNY, though, what does the Year of Ox mean for you angel investors out there? Well, I’ve talked to my Chinese Feng Shui experts and done a little research for you on the topic, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

For starters, one esteemed source I’ve talked to suggested that 2009 is in fact the year of the Brown Cow. How so? In the theory of Chinese Astrology Five Element, brown represents Earth. And what is the major element in Cow? Earth as well. So we’re talking a year in which the Earth is of foremost importance. Before you put me down and discount me as a tree-hugging, ultra-environmentalist, hear me out!

As an angel investor, one of your primary purposes is to find energetic, capable entrepreneurs with great ideas, then provide the capital and guidance for them to turn those ideas into profitable businesses. By “great,” we can define the best ideas as those that tackle our society’s or economy’s greatest issues at hand. And what is one of these greatest issues? The environment! I’m glad you’re still following my logic here.

So angel investors, perhaps your path in this Year of Ox (or Brown Cow) is to find those entrepreneurs with the ideas that could save our planet. How about sustainable energy ideas? Whether they be solar panels, wind power, waterpower, agro-based, you name it–fund a startup that is tackling our world’s energy scarcity issues, and you could hit pay dirt (and help save the planet while you’re at it).

Interesting ideas are also coming out of ways to protect the environment from pollution and other forms of degradation. Take the carbon trading market in Europe (and the one that will soon be in President Obama’s America). Find an entrepreneur with an idea to facilitate that market. Or how about the notion out there to protect the rainforests through financial tools? Some entrepreneurs have set up companies that allow ordinary folks, corporations and the wealthy to buy chunks of pristine eco-systems in faraway lands, thereby protecting them from destruction by ranchers, farmers, and the like.

It will be this generation’s entrepreneurs who come up with the innovations to tackle climate change, resource scarcity and other “brown” issues. It should be you who is funding their success in the Year of Ox.