Joining Angel Organizations – A Win-Win Opportunity

by William H. Payne
Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Kauffman Foundation

Angels invest time and money in startup companies. For most, making money is not the
primary motive for investing. These angels have “put away their nuts” for retirement and
are investing their “mad money” in entrepreneurs. They do so for a variety of
reasons…give-back to their communities, the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs, to
stay engaged in their retirement years and to work with fellow angels in building
enterprises, to name a few. Return on investment is an important metric of their success,
but not normally their primary motive for engagement.

Until the mid-90s, most of us would admit that angel investing was too much work. We
are looking for opportunities to travel, read, play golf and slow down. Angel investing
required us to read hundreds of business plans, searching for a gem. Once we suspected
we had found one, we spent many hours validating the business plan doing due diligence
on the entrepreneur and the company. After we were committed to invest, we found
ourselves helping the entrepreneur in finding additional angels and then shared the results
of our due diligence with them. And then after closing the deal, we normally serve on
Boards of these companies or in a variety of advisory roles.

Because the investing process is so time-consuming, our preferred deal flow came from
trusted sources…other angels and knowledgeable service providers in our communities
who had first-hand knowledge of the opportunity. We were pretty quiet about our
involvement in angel investing. Publicity resulting from speaking engagements, for
example, resulted in a slew of business plans arriving on our doorsteps within days after
the event. Reading 100s of business plans is not our activity of choice (see travel, golf,
etc. above). Until recently, most angel investors did not “hang out a shingle” announcing
their interest in investing in startup companies. Consequently, entrepreneurs found it
very difficult to locate potential angel investors for their promising ventures.

With angels hiding from entrepreneurs, angel investing was a very inefficient process.
For years, Professor J. Sohl of the Center for Venture Research, University of New
Hampshire, has referred to this disconnect, the information gap between qualified
entrepreneurs and the angel investors who might be interested in investing in their
companies, as the greatest impediment to angel investing.

Angels Join Organizations

In 1994, Hans Severiens and his colleagues in Silicon Valley formed the first formal
angel organization, the Band of Angels. (Other informal networks of angels formed
earlier to investing in early stage companies in several regions of the country, but the
Band is acknowledged by most as the earliest formal organization.) Since 1994, the
formation of angel organizations has expanded rapidly. According the Prof. Sohl, there
were at least 170 organizations of angels in the US in 2002.
 Number of Angel Organizations in the US

180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

There are three flavors of angel organizations:

Angel Funds
Angels pool their monies in Funds and make investments by voting for those companies
in which the fund will invest. Managers screen deal flow, lead due diligence efforts
using member expertise, where appropriate, and tee-up companies for consideration for
investment by the members. For their efforts, managers are compensated with a small
fraction of the funds collected and a preferred return on investment (a “carry” of 5 to
20%) once the capital is returned to investors.
Angel Networks
Angels make individual investment decisions in Networks, that is, some angels may
invest in one deal and another set of members may invest in the next deal.
In some Networks, managers are retained to lead the organization and perform many
of the duties described above for manager-led Angel Funds. Managers are
compensated through member dues and by a “carry” on each deal in which members
invest.
Elected members manage Member-led Networks. Members are recruited to screen
deals and to lead due diligence efforts. Other members are responsible for finances,
membership recruiting and communications. Often administrative assistance is
provided by local service providers, entrepreneurship centers or is hired by the
Network. Dues pay for this administrative support.

There is no standard model for these Networks and Funds, consequently operations vary
from organization to organization around the country. However, these organizations
have changed angel investing substantially, as follows:
1. Angel organizations encourage deal flow by promoting the organization and easing
the process for applying for funding. Knowing a member is no longer required for
entrepreneurs to approach most angel organizations. The gap described by Sohl
above is disappearing.
2. Angel organizations have adopted rigorous, standardized processes for screening
deals, for performing due diligence on candidate companies and in design and
utilization of term sheets for investment. Investing through angel organizations is
usually handled in a professional, reproducible manner.
3. Organizations of angels actively recruit qualified accredited investors to join their
Networks and Funds. In many communities, a single angel organization has emerged
for all angels, providing “one-stop shopping” for entrepreneurs seeking equity
investments. It is not longer necessary to approach angels one at a time, a very
inefficient process for entrepreneurs looking for angel investments.

A Win-Win Opportunity
I’ve been an angel investor since 1980, having invested in over 25 start-up ventures
during the intervening years. I am an angel investor because I enjoy assisting
entrepreneurs in build businesses. Like most experienced angels, I have experienced the
exhilaration of the successful exit and the agony of business failure. I can share that I am
no longer interested in investing as a lone angel investor. I will only invest as part of an
angel organization.

What attracts me to angel organizations? Angel organizations promote deal flow and
encourage entrepreneurs to apply for funding. Should individual entrepreneurs approach
me for consideration, I refer them to my angel organizations. I see a variety of
opportunities through my membership and can pick and choose those in which I wish to
invest. Screening and scrubbing deals with other knowledgeable angels is always a
learning experience for me. A group of angels studying a business opportunity brings
together an amazing array of business skills and experiences. Within our group of
angels, we can usually find members with appropriate exposure to most business
verticals, which is most valuable when looking at investment opportunities. By dividing
up the work, much of the pain and uncertainty of due diligence is eliminated. I listen
carefully to my fellow angels and then usually make up my own mind about the
opportunity presented by each investment possibility. By working with a group of angels
I can find all the rewards of angel investing with much less of the pain. Furthermore, I
find that I have developed many new friendships with astute entrepreneurs and
businesspersons who are members of the angel organizations with which I am affiliated.
I have found that joining angel organizations is a real win-win situation for me, less work
and more fun.

Mr. Payne is an exited entrepreneur, having built an electronics company that he sold to E. I. DuPont in 1982. Since that date he has
invested in over two dozenhigh tech and no-tech startup companies. Mr. Payne has consulted with the Kauffman Foundation (Kansas
City) as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence since 1995 on a variety of learning programs for entrepreneurs and their investors.