By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold I am talking to Troy Henikoff, co-founder and CEO of Excelerate Labs, a Chicago-based intensive summer accelerator for startups. The program attracts dozens of mentors from around the country to work closely with, usually, ten teams of entrepreneurs. The 13-week program begins on June 1 and on
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What do you think entrepreneurs could do to increase their chances of success? Michael: One is be incredibly honest and open about everything, both good and bad. You need to establish rapport. After the investment, that’s not the end. That’s the beginning. Typically, a company’s going
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Do you co-invest with other angel groups? Michael: Yes. We’re very open to sharing deal flow with others as well as co-investing with other angel groups, with other individuals, even along with venture firms. Irina: With the syndication, what size rounds do you usually participate in?
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: You were talking about alternative energy. Do you have special expertise and connections in the space? Michael: We have lots of connections in the space, in both industry and academia. But a lot of it is really because my other partners and I – this is
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What do you usually allocate for interns to do? Michael: It depends on the timing of the work. A lot of it is helping out with the screening of companies. Some of the stuff is helping with logistics at our meetings. Also, some of it is
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Can you tell us a little more about your VentureLab? Michael: That’s a separate organization. That’s an organization where we’re directly hired by companies to do a variety of services. It’s like any investment bank or professional services company. We’re working with a company and taking
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Michael: One of the key things that we try to do beyond the dollars, what is more important than any dollars that the investors could bring, is helping the company and being on the board of advisors or board of directors, or we find additional ways to
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: In the past 12 months, how many investments have you made? Michael: In 2009, we made seven investments. So far, in 2010, we’ve made three. Two of those three were in companies that were in our portfolio. They came back sort of as an extension of