Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Dave McClure, Founder, 500 Startups (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Dave: We are a little bit different from many other programs where the advisors are primarily coming from the investor category. In our world, those are mostly coming from the operational field category. Most of our mentors are coming from engineering, marketing, or design backgrounds, maybe product or business backgrounds, not so much investors. We have a few angel investors and VCs who are mentors, but they’re more the exception than the rule.

In many cases, our mentors are founders of companies we’ve already invested in or successful entrepreneurs whom we’ve gotten to know. I think we are going to be looking at the different companies we invest in and what kind of backgrounds and industry verticals they’re looking at, what kind of skill sets are they interested in hiring for or acquiring , and try to match people up that way. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Lewis Hower, Executive Director, University Impact Fund (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many employees do you have?

Lewis: We have one principal; his name is Patrick Mullen. The beauty of our model is that the rest of our employees are actually university students whom we bring into our program.

So, our system and structure is very similar to what you’d see at an existing venture firm in that we bring you on as an analyst or intern – using the words interchangeably – and we put you through a boot camp series of trainings and really drive home our model. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Lewis Hower, Executive Director, University Impact Fund (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the thirty-first interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Lewis Hower, executive director of University Impact Fund, which bills itself as the first student-run social impact seed financing organization for entrepreneurs that intends to deliver a return to its investors.

Based in Salt Lake City, the fund plans to use local students to source and analyze deals that address socioeconomic issues, such as clean water, waste management, and alternative energy. The fund size is planned to be at about $10 million to $15 million when fundraising is completed. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Dave McClure, Founder, 500 Startups (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many investments have you made?

Dave: It’s a little hard to keep track at times, those deals are things that I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year, probably 43, maybe 44 in calendar year 2010. Although the fund’s only been operating for two months, that’s basically the past nine months’ worth of activity.

Again, our target on an annual basis is probably around 75 to 100 once we’re up to speed, at about $100,000 sized average investment, anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Dave McClure, Founder, 500 Startups (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Dave: I was fortunate to have folks like Reid Hoffman and other folks as mentors or guides. They gave me a few tips. I ended up doing some consulting for  and also becoming an investor in Mint. That was one of the more notable investments that I’ve done.

Mint was acquired by Intuit last year for about $170 million. That ended up being about a 10x return on investment. And I got more into doing angel investing and less doing the consulting side. I sort of switched from charging for my time as a consultant and became more of an investor and advisor for the company, writing them checks. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Ira Weiss, Hyde Park Angels (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do any of the companies you mentioned have any interesting stories?

Ira: The one that we’re hoping is going to be the most successful is a company called Avid, which hasn’t gone liquid, yet, so there’s not a lot of information out about it.

What’s interesting about Avid is what they do. Their product is called Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, and that company has a diagnostic for Alzheimer’s disease. Thus far it’s been very, very successful. The New York Times has written a lot of articles on the company. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Dave McClure, Founder, 500 Startups (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the thirtieth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Dave McClure, an angel investor and the founder of 500 Startups, which is a seed fund and startup accelerator based in Mountain View, California.

Irina: Hi Dave, Let’s start briefly with your background.

Dave: I grew up in West Virginia and went to school in Maryland. After I graduated from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, I came out to the West Coast.

The first two years I was a programmer and database developer. And after two years realized I couldn’t work for anybody else, so I started my own consulting company. I ran a small consulting group from 1994 to 1998. That was about 20 people. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Ira Weiss, Hyde Park Angels (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What are your other notable investments?

Ira: I recently invested in a company called SURGiVIEW, which has an inexpensive way for surgeons to archive the videos of their surgeries and also to remotely broadcast the surgeries to other parts of the world.

I invested in a company a while ago called HxTechnologies (HxTI). We already invested and exited that company. It was bought by a company called MEDecision. It was a pretty good exit, but not great. >>>