By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director

ACA members are getting very good at working together to fund interesting deals.  The latest example:  six member groups from literally all corners of the US were part of a $12 million series B financing.  The investment in Cognition Therapeutics was led by Golden Seeds (New York and many cities), and included ACA members Cowtown Angels (Fort Worth), Maine Angels, PLSG Accelerator Fund (Pittsburgh), Tech Coast Angels (Southern California), and Ariel Southeast Angel Partners (Savannah), as well as additional life sciences investors.  Cognition Therapeutics (CogRx) is focused on discovering and developing disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative diseases. Read the full press release below for all the details.

ACA started its new membership year on July 1, and along with that came a changing of the guard in chairmanship.  Our association has been blessed with great leadership from our Board of Directors, especially from our Chairs.

These men and women have put in more hours than our members know to make sure ACA is strong and delivering value to our member angels, and with no financial reward.  David Verrill has been one of the best Chairs.  He goes to emeritus status with ACA in great shape, and hands the reins to Christopher Mirabile – who is already showing his excellent leadership abilities.

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. 

The 2015 ACA Summit in San Diego brought a great combination of professional content, networking among angels and thought leading speakers and sponsors – and let’s be honest, great weather and settings. More than 630 investors, sponsors and presenting entrepreneurs attended the program. Lots of great materials are posted on the event community app, but sometimes the best way to review what happened is in pictures. Below is my tour of the various events held on April 13-16, 2015 – with photos taken by Summit attendees on social media.

Each year the Angel Capital Association and Angel Resource Institute shine a spotlight on one individual whose collective body of work brightens the advancement of the field of angel investing. This year we honor Susan Preston.

Like many angel investors, Susan brings a depth of passion to her work which currently includes General Partner for the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, which focuses on seed/start-up stage investments in clean energy technology. She is also the Managing Partner for the new Seattle Angel Fund, committed to fostering entrepreneurial growth in the Pacific Northwest through early-stage investments.  Susan teaches in the MBA program and is the Buerk Endowed Fellow for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington. She also serves as co-chair and lead instructor for the Angel Resource Institute, a global investor and entrepreneur education organization. She has been named as one of the Managers for the new Element 8 Angel Fund and is a board member for Element 8, a Seattle-based clean-tech investing angel group. In 2014 Susan received the Small Business Person of the Year award from the Small Business Council of America and the Senator Cantwell Women of Valor award.

ACA Membership Director Sarah Dickey interviewed Ellen Weber recently as part of a series of ACA member profiles.

Meet Ellen Weber – ACA member angel investor, Executive Director of Robin Hood Ventures and Executive Director of the Temple Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute. Ellen provides insight into how the 16 year old angel group maintains its edge for investing in dynamic markets.

How and when did you get involved in angel investing?

Robin Hood was founded when two long-time friends attended a local pitch event with little structure and no follow up.  They wanted to create an angel group that would not only get deals done as effectively as possible, but would also work closely with the entrepreneur after investment.  I agreed to help them start this new angel group with an initial role of serving as the back office to get things off the ground. Very quickly my role grew and I also became very active in the local entrepreneurial community. 

As we say goodbye to 2014 and jump in to 2015, we would like to add our congratulations to all ACA members with recent growth, investments, and exit news!   Here are a few recent stories below:

Big Returns!

• Congratulations to Tech Coast Angels and Pasadena Angels on announcing that their recent exit of long term investment Bluebeam represents a 20x return.
• Hivers and Strivers members start 2015 with a great exit in Cargometrics and kept their average of time from investment to exit at 18 months.
• Pipeline Fellowship’s first investment is also their first exit!  Way to go Philantech.

By: Ken Kousky, angel investor, Executive Director of BlueWater Angels (Midland, MI), and member of ACA’s public policy committee. We invite you to get to know Ken and other ACA members via this periodic feature. If you have a great idea for a member profile, please contact Sarah Dickey.

How and when did you get involved in angel investing?
I have been making angel investments since the 1980s before we called it angel investing. My company, Cache Data Products, was acquired by Novell when they went public. While I continued to work for Novell, I had the opportunity to meet and support startups that were in our networking infrastructure space. Most needed seed capital.

By: Angela Jackson, Portland Seed Fund

The largest ever ACA Regional Meeting took place June 3-5 in Portland, OR. Angels from Nevada to Alaska discussed emerging data and deal flow trends for angels, syndication, helping portfolio companies in crises, and celebrating exits, among other topics. In addition to interactive sessions, 20 companies from throughout the region presented investment opportunities. Event host Angela Jackson, Managing Director of the Portland Seed Fund, provides insights into the fun work of creating and hosting this important regional event - by angels for angels.

It was a crazy notion, that we could entice 100 people to travel to Portland, Oregon on short notice for an ACA regional angel meeting.

Yet, with enticements like a beautiful, walkable, transit-friendly city, a foodie's dilemma on every corner (Food cart or farm-to-table? Craft brew or Willamette Valley Pinot?) we thought we had a shot.

By: David Verrill, Hub Angel Investment Group, LLC & Chairman – Angel Capital Association

ACA is eager for more accredited individual investors to join our organization to benefit from the professional development events, deal flow tools, and resources for portfolio success that we offer, along with the ability to influence public policy that has a huge impact on angel investors.

Now until late-March we're offering savings of a blended membership and fees to the 2014 ACA Summit in Washington, DC, the world’s largest gathering of sophisticated angel investors, and the preeminent forum for interaction and knowledge‐sharing among accredited investors. This is a savings of $300! Individual investors who belong to accredited platforms that belong to ACA receive even larger savings ($500) for the membership/ Summit package.

We encourage all accredited individual investors who are angels or want to become angels to join. For more information, see our news release here.

I will be at the ACA Summit and look forward to seeing you there!