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This summer they are hosting their first conference and it’s shaping up to be a must-attend event. Startup 2009 will be one-day conference that will feature interviews with entrepreneurs, expert panels, networking, and a 10-company startup contest. The 10 companies selected will compete for bragging rights, buzz, and a $50,000 prize!
They are using Angelsoft to manage the screening process for the contest so if you already have an application, all you need to do is apply.
The Contest
Emerging online companies are invited to submit applications to present at the conference. Their panel of VCs and experts will evaluate the applications in Angelsoft. They will then choose 10 finalists from the pool of applicants to present at the event.
Applying to the contest is free and all companies that apply will be evaluated by General Catalyst, Softbank, and Venrock for possible investment. One of the finalists will also win a $50,000 prize, which will consist of a $25,000 cash investment from General Catalyst Partners and $25,000 of in-kind services. The latter will include:
Up to 6 months of office space in NYC.
Marketing campaign with Silicon Alley Insider.
Legal services from a top-notch law firm.
How to Apply
Emerging companies in the online industry are invited to apply. (They’re defining “emerging” as less than a few million of seed capital.) Concept-only companies are fine, but you will need to describe your planned product and value proposition in detail.
Here’s how to apply:
1. Log-in to Angelsoft on the right hand side of the Startup 2009 Profile to start an application. If you do not have an Angelsoft account click Sign Up directly under the Login button.
2. Ignore the “Apply For Funding” part. You’re applying for the contest, not funding.
3. If you already have an Angelsoft account, you will be asked if you want to copy your answers from a previous application. If not, fill in the information and upload your business plan–any other uploaded material will be discarded.
As we are finally catching up from our time in Austin, I wanted to write about our first Entrepreneur User Group meeting at SXSW Interactive.
We want to ensure that entrepreneurs have the best possible experience when working with the investors who use our deal flow management software.
The team really enjoyed having a chance to sit down face-to-face with our entrepreneurial community to hear how we’re doing and what we can do better. Balancing the needs of entrepreneurs and investors is a tricky challenge, but one we are committed to get right. We plan on hosting User Group meetings in the future so you can share your feedback on our progress and learn how to best utilize our tools to find funding.
There they gave a great 30 minute presentation about how prospective angels should find deals, work with portfolio companies, and approach angel investing in general (I won’t spoil their grand finale, but suffice it to say that the last five minutes of their presentation should be mandatory viewing for every past, present and future angel investor on a monthly basis.)
But don’t take my word for it, listen for yourself:
Roger Ehrenberg, one of the smartest and most active angel investors in New York (and a member of Angelsoft-based New York Angels) recently led a $1.25 million angel financing of Domdex, an exciting new company in the Internet marketing space. In this interview from the DailyDeal with Mary Kathleen Flynn, Roger discusses the new breed of serious angels, and why they can be a viable alternative to traditional venture financing. Disclosure: I was one of the angels who participated in this round.
Today we launched an Investor Search Engine that includes all of the VC Funds and Angel Groups in the US. The tool includes a wide array of filters and sorts to help entrepreneurs narrow their funding search to the perfect group. We believe this a important step forward in bringing transparency and efficiency to the early-stage industry, and we’d love to hear your feedback.
Angelsoft.net Launches the Definitive VC & Angel Investor Search Engine
New York, NY (March 09, 2009) – Few would argue that it’s getting easier for startup companies to find investors. That however, is the bold claim made by financial technology provider Angelsoft.net, who today announced the release of theirInvestor Search Engine. The surprising news is that, given their unprecedented access to real data about real investors, they might just be right.
The Search Engine contains detailed profiles on over 1,000 venture capital firms and angel investment groups, with a dizzying array of sorts and filters reminiscent of Web 2.0 travel search engine Kayak.com. Entrepreneurs can filter investment firms based on how much they invest and what terms they typically offer, as well as on company-based criteria such as industry, location and stage. The real revolution, however, is the ability for entrepreneurs to sort the 450 investment organizations who use Angelsoft’s Investor Tools by actual metrics mined from the software, like each group’s average response time, number of applications received each month, and even real investment amounts.
“Entrepreneurs have never had access to this kind of tool before, but more importantly, they’ve never had access to this kind of data,” explained Angelsoft’s CEO, David S. Rose. ”Investors have traditionally been very guarded about how they manage their pipeline.”
When asked how they convinced their clients to open up, COO, Ryan Janssen cautioned, “Not all of them have, but our VCs and angel groups consistently rank ‘inappropriate applications’ as the biggest burden on their resources, and most of them know that will never change unless entrepreneurs have easier access to better information.”
It’s a poorly guarded secret that investors prefer to back experienced entrepreneurs, or at least those who have been referred by people they know. As such, it is increasingly difficult for new entrepreneurial talent to get discovered and funded. Most venture capital firms and an increasing number of professional angel groups no longer look at unsolicited business proposals.
“We’ve been battling this problem for the last 5 years,” says Janssen. “Because our platform powers the large majority of organized angel groups, as well as an increasing number of leading venture capital firms, the system can automatically ‘black-list’ entrepreneurs who apply indiscriminately, while promoting those companies that are the right match for a particular firm.”
Angelsoft also provides a suite of tools to help entrepreneurs manage their funding search, including an industry-standard online application, news feeds to monitor their progress as they move through a firm’s review process, and integration with the LinkedIn business networking site to quickly reveal their existing connections to each investment group. ”There simply is not a lot of trust between investors and entrepreneurs right now,” explained Rose. “We believe that communication and transparency is the key to rebuilding that trust, and the Angelsoft platform is taking major strides in this area.”
Geography and investment sector are really two most important criteria when searching for an angel network to join. You can filter the list of investors based on where you live, and you can look for groups based on which industry they specialize in. What will an Angel group want to know about me before I can join?
Every group will have different requirements, ranging from a a simple exchange of email to a full blown application process. Investing with others in a group requires trust, so expect them to want to get to know you first.
Once your company has received funding, this tool helps track your deal terms. You can also track the percentage of your company owned by each investor.
Who will see the information I enter here?
When an investor commits funds to your company, they will be brought to a similar page where they can enter the amount invested. They’ll be able to see other investors in their group, as well as see how much money has been committed by outside investors (though they will not be able to see the names of those outside their group).
Who can edit this information?
Investors can enter their investment amount, which will automatically show up on your Investor Relations page. You can edit any information and add investors who have not entered an amount.
Angelsoft is a New York City-based software company dedicated to providing tools to investors and entrepreneurs in the early stage venture space. Our investor tools focus around deal flow management, company communications, group management, and deal sharing.
Your investment data is extremely secure. One advantage of using the Angelsoft platform is a dedicated team that works to keep your data private. Since this is our core expertise, our engineers have designed a system with several layers of security, both physical (network level with firewalls, intrusion protection, database security) and logical (application level security, secure data delivery over SSL). Each entity (VC funds, angel groups, et. al.) lives in its own sandbox, secured from other entities by strict authorization architecture that ensures only authorized users can access your data. The customer has complete control over who has access to their account, and can revoke permission at any time.
Angelsoft is a platform open only to qualified business angel networks and venture capital firms. We provide the software free of charge to angel groups and offer a subscription service to venture capital firms. Pricing varies for venture funds depending on size, starting around 5K per year.
Contact us at support [at] angelsoft.net. Why isn’t sign up automatic? We take the time to get to know every investor group that wants to use our software in order to preserve the high quality of our Angelsoft investor network. Someone from our business development team will get back to you in person to give you a demo, confirm that your group qualifies, and set you up with a trial account.
We provide a series of tools that make it easier for you to keep track of your deals in our “deal log.” You can input data through bulk import, e-mail forwarding, and entrepreneur self-service, or the old-fashioned way: manual data entry (which most VC partners tend to avoid!). Once your data is registered in the deal log, you can build an investment pipeline to move your deals through each step in the investment process while tracking notes on the status of each one. Then, using our simple reporting tools, you can get an overview of which deals you’re working on and what your next steps should be.
Our goal is to minimize the pains of administrative data entry while maximizing the power of reporting so you can spend your time working on deals, not dealing with software.
Angelsoft is the industry standard deal-flow management software for VC Funds and Angel Investment Groups. 450 groups use the software as the exclusive means of managing investment opportunities from submission to investment. The Funding Stories page is a current directory of compaines that have been funded by investors using our toolset.
When an investor finds a deal the or she is interested in, they may “refer” it out of Open Deals and into their group’s Angelsoft account.
When this happens:
The admin of the investor’s group is notified by e-mail. For an angel group this is usually the General Manager. For a VC fund this generally includes all partners.
A deal room is created in the group’s Angelsoft account, which will be used to collaborate internally and communicate with you.
A new application is added to your Application Monitor. You can edit this application and add additional documents. Note: A “referred” deal does NOT count towards your 3-submission limit.
When you apply directly to a group using the Investor Search Engine, the group also has the option to “refer” your deal to another investment group that they think might be interested. They may do the same by referring a deal from Open Deals.
As we are finally catching up from our time in Austin, I wanted to write about our first Entrepreneur User Group meeting at SXSW Interactive.
