The flurry of business cards exchanging hands Friday at Hotel Emma reflected the keen interest of angel investors from across the state at the Alliance of Texas Angel Networks Summit 2017. The nonprofit Alliance of Texas Angel Networks (ATAN) was created in 2012 to foster the growth of start-up activity in Texas, with 13 angel network groups across the state.
An angel network is a group of angel investors who organize together to facilitate investing. High-growth startup companies looking for less than $1 million in total funding are typical candidates applying for angel investment. Angel investors, in turn, look for increased deal flow and cooperation with other high net-worth individuals.
San Antonio’s Angel Network (SAAN), first organized last September, hosted the summit. More than 50 ATAN investors traveled from locations across Texas to attend the event.
“The summit is an opportunity to showcase San Antonio and offer a great experience for our 65 investor members to meet other ATAN investors,”SAAN Executive Director Chris Burney said.
Founding members of the San Antonio Angel Network include the Geekdom Fund’s Michael Girdley; former Rackspace President, TechBloc founder, and venture capitalist Lew Moorman; Filestack’s Pat Matthews; Intrinsic Imaging’s Amit Mehta; NBA-TV commentator and former San Antonio Spur Brent Barry; FlashSCan3D engineer Cole Wollak; and Geekdom CEO Lorenzo Gomez.
Before the formation of the San Antonio Angel network, San Antonio startups had to rely on individual venture capitalists or sources like the Geekdom Fund to find investors, Burney said.
“San Antonio’s Angel Network has an affiliation with other angel groups [in the ATAN network] to facilitate angel funding across the state,” Burney said. “In our monthly calls, we share updates on specific deals. If a company needs investors, we can share deals and put together a coalition of investors across the different angel networks via syndication.”
The various angel groups in Texas operate independently, yet have opportunities to invest in a deal proposed by another affiliated angel group within the ATAN network.
“Our goal is to fund high-growth companies that come to our member angel groups,” said ATAN chair Jamie Rhodes. “One rule we have…