Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Anurag (Anu) Nigam, President, Sand Hill Angels (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you think about the return you would like to have over a certain period?

Anu: We’re different from a VC firm in that we don’t have IRR [internal return on investment], and we don’t have LPs [limited partners]. It’s our own money. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Michael Gruber, Founder and Managing Director, Cornerstone Angels (Part 6)

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 find resources for them, maybe even to shore up some of their management team.

In that sense, sometimes with my VentureLab group, that’s a lot of times what we do when we’re trying to raise money for companies. Sometimes, we try to take those management roles in which we can get additional credibility for the company, maybe fill a marketing or CFO-type role so they don’t have to find someone and pay someone full time until they execute. After they execute, they can find the right person to take on that task. It’s all about the appropriate staging of the right people. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Anurag (Anu) Nigam, President, Sand Hill Angels (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How do the angels gain access to the deals that are received?

Anu: Everything is done through Angelsoft. I think we were one of the first users of Angelsoft. Most angel groups use it.

Irina: What do you like about Angelsoft? Is there any fees?

Anu: It’s not free [now]. We were one of the early ones [to use it], so maybe we grandfathered in. But it provides everything. It’s easy to do, it’s customized, and it’s designed for angel groups and deal flow management. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Anurag (Anu) Nigam, President, Sand Hill Angels (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Anu: Around 2006–2007, I ended up starting another company called 411Sync, which was doing mobile search. It did OK, but it didn’t go anywhere. And then I spent a year and a half trying different things.

Now I’ve been on my new company since May 2008. It’s called BuzzBox, and it does personalized news alert applications for cell phones.

The first year we did something different, so I kind of tossed out an idea that didn’t work. May 2009 was when we started the new incarnation of the company. So, basically it’s giving you notifications of things that matter to you and trying to be the first point of contact to the Internet in your day-to-day life. That’s my entrepreneurial hat. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Michael Gruber, Founder and Managing Director, Cornerstone Angels (Part 5)

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 a round, and we had some additional people make investments in those companies. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Michael Gruber, Founder and Managing Director, Cornerstone Angels (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: You get about 300 a year. How many deserve a closer look?

Michael: It all depends. What we have is a multi-step screening process. We have five screening meetings a year and five investment meetings a year. We basically stagger it. One month we’ll have a screening meeting, followed by an investment meeting the next month. We have one month off in the summer and one month off in December for the holidays.

But what we typically do is, out of the 20 to 30 companies that we receive at one period, we wind up whittling that down, and we have usually between five and eight companies that we then invite to participate in the screening meeting.

Then from those five to eight, we’ll select two, maybe three, that are invited to participate in the investment meeting where the members and other guests will evaluate whether those are companies they’re interested in pursuing through due diligence and possibly investing in. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Anurag (Anu) Nigam, President, Sand Hill Angels (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fortieth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Anurag (Anu) Nigam, president of Sand Hill Angels, which is an angel investing group in Silicon Valley with more than 60 members. Anu is also the founder and CEO of BuzzBox, a startup focusing on personalized news service. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Christina Brodbeck, Silicon Valley (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you serve on the boards of any of the companies you invested in?

Christina: No, I don’t. I do serve on some advisory boards, but those aren’t the companies that I have invested in.

Irina: What do you think entrepreneurs could do better?

Christina: Going back to what I was saying before, try to engage your angel investors as much as possible. They’re your resource. Use them as advisors, any time you have a question, any question about your product or how to go to market. Just any questions that you might have with what you’re working on. >>>