Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What level of experience do you require a company’s team to have?

Pete: We’ve invested in people who are in school, out of school, senior executives. I think what they’ve got to have is the ability to concisely present the opportunity that they have and make sure that it can be explained to the investors, most of whom don’t have the domain expertise in the space that maybe the entrepreneur [has]. So, they’ve got to be able to do that. And they also have to be able to show the ability to raise money. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What percentage of a company’s equity do you usually seek?

Pete: Typically, anywhere from 10% to 30%, depending on the round.

Irina: What’s the typical return that you’d like to receive?

Pete: We’d like to get seven times to ten times in five to seven years. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you hold regular meetings?

Pete: Yes, most of our funds meet every other month. And then they usually have screening committees. Some screening committees are monthly; some are a little bit ahead of the member meetings. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Is there any place on the website where entrepreneurs can e-mail you?

Pete: On our general website, we’ve got my bio on there with an e-mail. The issue is, though, we have to have a RAIN Fund in the area. So, if someone from Arizona sends us a business plan, it’s going to be really tough for us to do anything because we don’t have a RAIN Fund in that area. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Would you consider yourselves regional and national at this point?

Pete: I would say we’re regional now with the goal of being national.

Irina: Since you have such a diverse membership, would you say that you have a specific expertise or a more general approach?

Pete: I think we’ve got expertise in multiple areas throughout our fund. Most of our members are business owners and entrepreneurs themselves. And we have a good background in traditional manufacturing, we have people who have medical backgrounds, high-technology backgrounds, energy, distribution, veterinary sciences, and biotech.

We can find expertise in the network. We’ve got access through our investors, through portfolio company managers, things like that, where we can, hopefully in a short period of time, find the expertise we need to evaluate a deal. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the tenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager at RAIN Source Capital, a multistate network of RAIN® funds.

The network currently has more than $33 million invested in 55 companies. Its head office is in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Irina: Hi Pete, Could you tell us a little about your own background?

Pete: I started off in public accounting and then wound up doing some incubation in a company and decided I wanted to work with startup businesses. From there I went to do some tech transfer work, and then years ago I joined RAIN Source to help on the financial side. Now I manage our RAIN Fund program.

Irina: Tell us about RAIN Source Capital.

Pete: RAIN Source Capital is network of angel funds, 23 of them, that operate mainly in the upper Northwest – Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Montana, and Idaho. These 23 funds are made of 450 accredited investors, and we’ve been operating as an entity for about 12 years and focused on specifically angel investing for the past seven.

>>>

Working Capital (Debt) Financing For Entrepreneurs: Mitch Jacobs, Founder And CEO, On Deck Capital (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What do you think business owners should do, in general, to be more successful with finding the capital that they need?

Mitch: I think the absolute, most pivotal thing that business owners need to do is to make it easier for lenders to understand the performance profile of their businesses. >>>

Working Capital (Debt) Financing For Entrepreneurs: Mitch Jacobs, Founder And CEO, On Deck Capital (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What business sectors do you usually see?

Mitch: It’s all of the local services that you would see in any community or neighborhood. Restaurants, retail, local practitioners such as doctors, dentists, veterinarians, hospitality, hotel and lodging, plumbing, HVAC, repairpeople. Those are the major categories. Then there’s a category of “other” that probably includes another 50 [types of businesses]. It’s all of the different retail and service operations that make a neighborhood or town work. >>>