The next Angel Lounge meeting is coming up on Thursday, March 6th at 11:30-1pm.

The purpose of the Angel Lounge (a part of Startuplounge.com) is to create an unstructured environment for local angels to meet each other and learn from each other. Our goal is to stimulate investment in Atlanta startups while creating the next generation of Angel investors.This is our second monthly luncheon. Last month we had about 15 angels and everybody was excited about the opportunity to come together on a monthly basis and talk angel investing. We also took a small survey to determine what topics may be of interest to discuss.

This month’s topic is “How to develop your investment profile.” Some of us will share while others will just listen. Not all attendees have made investments. Some of the attendees are just investigating angel investing.

Please feel free to invite a guest or two. The more angel investors and potential investors the better. Just be sure to tell me how many will be coming.

If you are interested in attending, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the right person. To attend, you must either be (A) an active angel investor here in Georgia, or (B) someone who is interested in becoming an angel investor (and has the means to do so).

Cheers.

As we continue to evolve our efforts at StartupLounge.com, we’re always trying to find new and innovative ways to foster early-stage entrepreneurship in the Southeast. In anticipation of our next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event, we have decided to hold another quarterly event: Angel Lounge.

There are a lot of new angel investors out there, as well as many that lurk, but aren’t quite sure where to begin. Well, we’re here to help.

Kudos to Charlie Paparelli (of Paparelli Ventures) for suggesting this idea. Charlie is a very experienced angel investor, and the newest member of our StartupLounge.com steering committee. Sig Mosley of Imlay Investments has also graciously agreed to attend and lend his expertise to the room.

The Angel Lounge - Free Lunch!

Building the startup ecosystem in the Southeast (and in particular, Atlanta) is what the Startuplounge.com is all about. The Angel Lounge is an opportunity for our angel investor attendees to get to know each other and for us to get to know you. Our goal is to “help you help each other” get to the right investment more efficiently. In this open, lounge-like, environment, angel investors will meet prior to the Capital Conference to:

• Meet fellow investors
• Gain an understanding of fellow investor interests
• Discuss the various methods of angel investing
• Learn about the various deal structures and what to expect
• Understand how to best evaluate opportunities while attending Capital Connections
• What to expect in the first meeting outside the conference

More importantly, you’ll get to meet some very interesting people just like yourself. And it is literally a free lunch (compliments of one of our sponsors, Adams Capital). Who knows, maybe someday you’ll do a deal together.

If you are an angel investor in the Southeast, and would like to attend, please let me know. The cost is free, but space is limited.

Angel Lounge will be held on Wednesday, January 30th at the offices of Adams Capital in Atlanta. The actual Capital Connections event will be held a week later, on Wednesday, February 6th.

Cheers.

If you are an early-stage entrepreneur in the Southeast U.S., and you want to come hang out with a couple hundred like-minded investors and entrepreneurs, you won’t want to miss the next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event.

Cheers.

There was a great article today on thedeal.com entitled “Intel Capital Says Yes to Seed Investing”. Great read!

My favorite quote (attention all VCs, syndicates, and LPs in the Southeast):

Angela Biever, vice president of Intel and managing director of Intel Capital’s consumer Internet investments, explains that the venture group will invest in companies at any stage. When it comes to consumer Internet startups, it’s possible today to start a company so small that if an investor wants to get in on the deal, it must be prepared to play at an early stage. Also, many consumer Internet startups find themselves acquired before they get the opportunity to raise a Series B or an expansion round.

“If you’re not in a deal early, you frequently don’t get a chance to play,” Biever says.

I couldn’t agree more. For some reason, this got me thinking about LPs.

So much has been said about the lack of early-stage capital in the Southeast, and there are a lot of truisms there (along with a fair amount of rhetoric). However, not much has been said about the expectations of the limited partners (LPs) of those funds.

We need to obviously plant a lot of trees if we hope to have a good harvest in the market. Perhaps we should put more pressure on the LPs to give new venture funds some leeway in making some true “early-stage” investments as a small allocation of the larger fund. For without taking risk on little companies, we don’t get to enjoy the benefits of harvesting the larger ones.

Cheers.

As I promised in my recent post on linear entrepreneurship, I have put down my thoughts on venture capital as a “numbers game.” Venture capital is a numbers game, but in more ways than you may realize if you are an entrepreneur living anywhere other than places like California, Boston, or Chicago.

While I consider myself to be a business-person first, I am (or was) a software engineer by trade. So, either way you slice it, I like data. The more the merrier. So, let’s examine things logically.

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iBloks is a new media play that recently announced a $3M round of financing, which followed a $500K angel round. Some folks out there have questioned the “utility” value of such a product, and the motives of the investors who parted the linings of their wallets to pony up the $3M.

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My pal Justin Rubner at the Atlanta Business Chronicle recently published an interesting piece covering the PwC Money Tree Report. I wrote about this the other day as well (sorry again for scoopin’ ya, JRub). While you can’t really dispute the facts, some here in Atlanta think that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than is getting publicized.

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