Archive for February 2018

By Linda Smith, ACA Chair

Auckland’s ICE Angels are awesome!  As soon as you step into their innovation center (called the ICE House) which was previously a textile mill, the vibe is palpable.  Young entrepreneurs are collaborating in one corner, an  executive MBA program is housed within the facility, planning is proceeding for the next Innovation Showcase, an in-house Accelerator is over-subscribed, and one wall is completely covered with the logos of the more than 126 companies in the ICE Angels portfolio.

 This Auckland group of over 160 members has invested more than $80 million since its founding in 2003.  A lot of the dynamism behind ICE Angels is due to to Robbie Paul, the Chief Operating Officer for ICE Angels.  Robbie brims with enthusiasm as he talks about young companies like Crimson Consulting (helping secure admissions to the best universities in the world, now valued at $200 million), and Sunfed  Meats (a product that tastes just like chicken but made with pea protein ).

By Linda Smith, ACA Chair

Sydney Angels celebrated a 50th anniversary, of sorts—since their founding in 2008 they have invested in over 50 start-ups.  I had the opportunity to meet with several of their Management Committee members including Richard Dale, Karen Farley, and Adrian Bunter while in the exciting city of Sydney, Australia.

During our conversations, Sydney Angels (SA) credited Tech Coast Angels and the Kauffman Foundation as reference models and trusted sources of information and educational content that was helpful to SA in its formative years.  They also praised the work of Rob Wiltbank and would welcome sharing data about angel investing, including the new ACA data strategies report being developed by Rick Timmins and the Data Strategies Task Force led by Steve Flaim.

By: Ethel Rubin, PhD, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, NIH Office of the Director Office of Extramural Research

Looking for a deal in your backyard? The NIH is the world's largest investor in early stage life sciences companies. Over 1000 companies annually tap into NIH’s SBIR and STTR program for nondilutive funding to the tune of $980M in FY17. Did you know the NIH maintains RePORTER, an online database, of all funded companies and projects? This link will take you to what's been funded this fiscal year, but you can query the database yourself to look for companies specific to your interests. There are over 25 different ways to search and visualize the data with built in analytics (click on the Data & Visualize to create graphs and more you can export directly to PowerPoint and Excel).

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ACA On the Road by Angel Capital Association  on  March 11
ACA Announces Keynote Speaker for Summit: Kwame Anku by Angel Capital Association  on  March 08