By Francis Moran
The Capital Angel Network, a new angel organization whose launch we covered about a year ago, is stepping up its activity levels in support of what organizer Laurie Davis said this morning is an effort “to make Ottawa a more vibrant (investment) community and a better place to start a company.” The first step in that process was this morning’s first of what the network intends to be regular monthly meetings of people who are, or who are interested in becoming, angel investors.
Intended primarily as a networking event to allow angels and prospective angels to get to know each other better, the breakfast meetings, scheduled for the first Thursday of every month, will also include a presentation by a company or two. This morning’s presenting companies were What Wins, an online tool that helps horse racing bettors pick their bets both more easily and, the company claims, with better odds of winning, and JetstreamHD, a consumer appliance from Ottawa’s Nuvyyo that can stream to an iPad any media — movies, photos, music files, home videos and more — from wherever you keep it in your home network. (JetstreamHD executives have just returned from launching their product at Demo Spring 2011 conference that wrapped up yesterday. They were quite chuffed by the response they got, including some boffo media coverage.)
When he launched the Capital Angel Network, Davis said he was hoping to make it easier for both entrepreneurs and angels to do deals together. “It takes a lot of time and effort to find enough angels to give you the amount of money you need. So if you can gather a number of angels together in a group, it saves the entrepreneur a lot of time and effort.” On the other side of a term sheet, a group of angels can pool both resources and expertise to make larger investments with greater assurance.
To a degree, that has happened in the year since the network was launched. “There are a lot interesting things happening in Ottawa,” Davis said this morning. “But people willing and able to make angel investments don’t know each other enough.” He hopes this more regular and scheduled series of breakfast meetings will overcome that.
As an occasional angel investor and someone who is keen to see good startups in Ottawa gain better access to homegrown investors and the expertise they bring to the table, I can only applaud this initiative. We’ll keep you posted on this blog about how it’s going. In the meantime, if you are interested in the meetings, you can contact Davis by email: laurie (at) capitalangels (dot) ca.
