Tag Archives: Female Investors

Angel Investing – “Dream, Girl……”

26fa03f0-8072-4593-9156-e4fa79e7fe3bThere’s a great quote from Albert Schweitzer  – “Do something wonderful, people may imitate it”. Hopefully other people will imitate the over 184 backers (myself included) of a current KickStarter Project called Dream, Girl: The Documentary. Continue reading

Angel Investing – “Bringing Tech Education to ALL Women”

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????This past weekend, I had the opportunity to invest in a crowd-funding campaign for Bella Minds – whose mission is quite simple – “Bringing Tech Education to ALL Women”.  There is lots of press these days on the lack of women in STEM… so rather than just read/write about the problem, this was an opportunity to participate in an actual solution; yes do something! Continue reading

Angel Investing – #InvestInGirls

Young Math Science Girl Genius WritingThere has been a lot of conversation of late of the need to increase the presence of women on corporate boards, in the VC and angel community, and in the ranks of high-tech entrepreneurs. Studies conducted by Catalyst and McKinsey have shown that having women in leadership is correlated with stronger financial returns. Continue reading

Angel Investing – Term Sheets and Value Protection

Accountant With Giant Golden CalculatorThis is the fourth post on Term Sheets and how they impact returns to investors. In addition to economics and control, term sheets also contain provisions that impact how as investors we can add some level of protection for the value of our investment. Although there are a number of provisions in the term sheet addressing this, the three most important to me are:

Angel Investing – It’s all about the Execution!

Crackers jump 1This past week I had the opportunity to spend the week with my daughter Charlotte, watching her compete at a horse show. Charlotte, now an adult, has been riding and competing for a number of years and I never cease to be amazed by the strength and beauty of these incredible horses and how the riders can control such powerful animals. In much the same way I feel that being an angel investor enables me to be a “vicarious entrepreneur”, being a “HorseShowMom” allows me to imagine myself in the saddle. Now, in terms of full disclosure, I did take some riding lessons early in my daughter’s riding career which were quickly ended when I flew over the jump (without the horse!) and decided at that point that I was best suited for ground crew! Continue reading

Angel Investing – Investing in Women Entrepreneurs

successful word cloudIn their soon to be released book –  What Every Angel Investor Wants You To Know  – An Insider Reveals How To Raise Smart Money For Your Billion Dollar Idea (McGraw Hill, 2013), Brian Cohen, Chairman of New York Angels, and John Kador, demystify the process of Angel investing.

Of particular interest to me is Brian’s experience with investing in early stage companies that are either founded by women or where women serve on the senior leadership team. There is lots of buzz these days on how women should or should not position themselves to excel in the corporate ranks. In the excerpt from his book below, Brian provides us with some great DATA as well as opinion on the case for investing in women. Continue reading

Angel Investing – What it’s all about

Collaboration concept in word tag cloudLast week I had the opportunity to attend the Golden Seeds Innovation Summit. During this annual event, CEOs from the Golden Seeds Portfolio Companies, Golden Seeds Members, LPs in the Golden Seeds Funds and guest speakers come together for two days in NYC. It is a venue for the CEOs to update current and potential investors about their companies and also to interface with one another, a powerful networking opportunity. In addition to hearing about the progress of our portfolio companies, members are able to attend sessions on topics including; positioning for exit, brand building, trends in various industry sectors, and many others.

To me, angel investing is so much  more than just writing a check, as I discussed in an earlier blog post. The ability to interface with our dynamic CEOs and to collaborate on investment opportunities with a great group of investors, like my colleagues at Golden Seeds, is “What it’s all about“. Each time I participate on a deal team, in addition to sharing my own expertise, I always learn something new. I follow my companies on Twitter and other social media venues and try to be a supportive “angel” (which means not trying to micromanage but being strategic with both advice and input). I feel extremely privileged to be a part of the Golden Seeds national network and look forward to investing with them in 2013.

Angel Investing – Follow-on Rounds

DecisionIn my last post, I discussed planning your angel investment strategy for 2013 and taking into consideration not only new portfolio additions but also participations in “follow-on” rounds emanating from your current portfolio. So how do you decide, if you have the option to invest, whether or not to participate in a “follow-on” round? When I am considering this question for my own portfolio, I first determine what type of “follow-on” round this investment opportunity represents. I use the following three categories: Continue reading

Angel Investing – Resolutions 2013

Ready for year 2013It’s a New Year and time to make those resolutions. In addition to thinking about personal goals for the year, it’s a great time to review your angel investment portfolio. As angels we see many interesting investment opportunities and it helps to set a goal at the beginning of the year for the investment amount that you want to commit to this sector over the next 12 months. When setting this goal take into consideration: Continue reading

Cap Tables – Puzzles for Investors

A Cap Table, which is an abbreviation for capitalization table, is a record that outlines the ownership of a company. The details of a cap table include not only the names of the shareholders but also the type of equity security they own, the prices they paid and any other options or future equity that will impact the fully-diluted ownership of the company. Continue reading