Asheville Angels, an angel investor group that invest in startups and high-growth companies in Asheville and across the Southeast, has reached a major milestone of growing to 50 members.
“When Asheville Angels began last fall,” says Josh Dorfman, Managing Director, “we hoped to build a robust group. Reaching 50 members in our first year of operation has exceeded our expectations and speaks to the growing excitement around building high-growth ventures in our city.” This milestone puts Asheville Angels on a par with angel groups across the US, according to data from the Angel Capital Association, the professional association of leading angel groups, of which Asheville Angels is a member. “It’s a strong achievement for a small city of Asheville’s size.”
The investor group has also been very active. Since its first meeting, it has screened dozens of companies, heard pitches from over 30 startups, completed multiple due diligence projects, and has invested in four companies – Plum Print, ActivEd, Baebies, and Rival Health.
Asheville Angels is a partnership with the South Carolina Angel Network (SCAN), an affiliation of angel investor groups across the Carolinas. Paul Clark, Managing Director of SCAN, added, “The size of Asheville Angels, the caliber of its investors, and the frequency of its investments proves that it is not a flash in the pan. By partnering, we together ensured that all our investors could evaluate high quality investment opportunities from day one, and could invest following the best angel investing practices. The results have already been impressive.”
Individuals join angel groups to access a difficult investment asset class (early stage companies) in a prudent way, by combining the business acumen of other business leaders and professionals to evaluate companies, and by investing in a diversified portfolio with discipline and rigor. Along the way, they become integral to a community’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Firstly, when local companies like Plum Print can raise capital locally they spend less time fundraising and more time creating great businesses. Secondly, as local angel investors become increasingly comfortable with early stage companies, by making investments and by attending seminars like those Asheville Angels provides, the next cohort of startups should have even more financial resources available to them. And, finally, as Asheville’s angels invest with leading early stage investors across the region – as in the fundraising recently completed by Baebies – they develop investor relationships that can bring more funding back to Asheville.
For companies looking for capital, or for investors looking to diversify their investments and exercise their business acumen, Asheville Angels meets every month. It also runs educational events, from seminars like “Valuation of Early Stage Investments,” “How to Pitch Angel Investors,” and “Understanding Investment Term Sheets” to longer workshops like the upcoming “Understanding Investment Cap Tables” which is scheduled for Thursday, October 22. Event and ticket information can be found here.
