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Profiting From Promising Startups: Improving the Odds (Part 2)

Angel investing is risky and potentially very rewarding. You already know that. Even if your primary intention is to encourage the entrepreneurial spirits in your community, it’d be nice to make money from your “semi-charitable” investments too. If you don’t expect to make money, you’re a philanthropist, not an angel investor.
Why are some investors more [...]

Profiting From Promising Startups: Improving the Odds (Part 1)

You’re wealthy and wired. You just read Become an Angel Investor in 2010: An HBS Framework and 2010: The Ultimate Buyers’ Market for Investor. You’re getting antsy. You’re ready to invest in a startup. You’re ready to tap into your Rolodex and pave the road to success for any startups that cross your desk.
Whoa. Slow [...]

Write a Check To Women in Tech

Not long ago “women” and “technology” meant a secretary with a typewriter composing her boss’s memo.
Times have changed.
Now, not only are women running businesses, they are starting them. And they aren’t sticking with cosmetics or flowers or anything else traditionally “female.”
Ning was co-founded by a woman. So was Flickr, which was bought by Yahoo in [...]

Shark Tank (Part 2): 5 Things the Show Gets Right

[Guest post by Brant Bukowsky, the founder of GrowthPartner.com -- a firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A serial entrepreneur, Bukowsky and his team have built three Inc. 500 companies in the last five years. He blogs at Angel Investment Journal.]

This is the second in a two-part series.

In Part [...]

Shark Tank (Part 1): 5 Things the Show Gets Wrong

[Guest post by Brant Bukowsky, the founder of GrowthPartner.com -- a firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A serial entrepreneur, Bukowsky and his team have built three Inc. 500 companies in the last five years. He blogs at Angel Investment Journal.]
This is the first in a two-part series.
ABC’s reality [...]

Founder Collective: Chris Dixon’s Seed Investment Firm

Although the adventures of Chris Dixon in the world of venture capitalism might make an interesting read by themselves, the newest feather in Dixon’s cap is what caught my attention.
Dixon has founded 2 successful Internet companies in New York over the last 4 years. Dissatisfied with the venture capital market, however, he has now teamed [...]

Thealzel Lee of VANTEC: Backing Life Sciences Companies

What’s it like to back a life sciences company? What should investors expect before investing in the bio/health sectors? Who’s entitled to be called an “angel investor”?
These are some of the questions Thealzel Lee will answer in this interview.
Lee is the senior partner of Rocket Builders, a management consulting firm that sponsors Vancouver Angel Technology [...]

Angel Investing: Dilution Preventive Measures (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of our quest to answer a reader’s question on dilution.
The reader writes -
How do you prevent being washed out as you keep pro-rata and the numbers get increasingly bigger?
Suppose you invest $200k for 25%. The venture then raises $5m, so to keep pro rata you do $1.25m of that round. Then [...]

Angel Investing: Dilution in a Down Round (Part 2)

A reader recently asked about dilution and we decided to answer it in 3 parts. Part 1 looks at dilution in an up round; this part examines dilution in a down round; and Part 3 goes over some of the measures you can take to minimize the impact and likelihood of dilution.
Here’s the question:
How do [...]

Angel Investing: Dilution in an Up Round (Part 1)

A reader writes –
How do you prevent being washed out as you keep pro-rata and the numbers get increasingly bigger?
Suppose you invest $200k for 25%. The venture then raises $5m, so to keep pro rata you do $1.25m of that round. Then it raises $15m. Eventually it gets hard to follow you money and you [...]