Angel investing groups provide a considerable power to angel investors, which carries over to entrepreneurs and our startup economy.  I particularly like the powers of portfolio diversity, the right people and size. 

Don’t be surprised to see substantially more companies using Regulation A to sell securities through public solicitation of investors beginning June 19, when the SEC’s new “Regulation A+” rules take effect. Why? The new “Reg A+” provides a new option for “mini-IPOs,” allowing companies to raise up to $50 million from investors in unregistered public offerings. Angels benefit it two ways. This is another opportunity to invest or it can help their portfolio companies secure the funding needed to take them to the next level. 

By: Elizabeth Usovicz, General Manager of Transaction Commons, as part of a series she writes for ACA aimed at entrepreneurs, "Your Pitch is Just the Beginning."

As an entrepreneur, your pitch is arguably the most important message about your company’s investment-readiness that you will ever deliver. Most entrepreneurs develop two versions of a pitch: a short, elevator version, and a longer, investor presentation with a slide deck. Your elevator pitch is much more than a compressed investor presentation without the slide deck. It’s a precious few seconds of your listener’s attention in which to communicate your passion, describe your innovative product or service and clarify its value from an investor’s point of view.  

ACA Membership Director Sarah Dickey interviews Jorge Varela as part of a series of profiles of ACA members

How and when did you get involved in angel investing?

I have been actively investing since before the word was popular. I made my first investment more than 15 years ago in TFB Corporation a company in which I later served as CEO.  I am still invested in the company and I am Chairman, but have been able to have two liquidity events and look forward to a third. I was involved in my first startup when I was 21, Braun Systems, which we sold a year later to ITT Systems in 1987.  I then moved to Silicon Valley before all the Valley excitement and became employee number three with VoicePlus, which we took public in a roll-up with Nhanced Technologies. These two early experiences gave me the bug for startups that I have not been able to shake. 

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now allow non-accredited investors to invest in startups located in their state. As more states follow suit, it is useful to look at data detailing other countries’ experiences. Both the UK and Sweden have experimented with “equity crowdfunding” for non-accredited investors for a number of years now. Their experiences so far have been interesting, as have the implications for the UK and Swedish angel communities.