Tag: fg angel
We had a fascinating week trying to get everything figured out on our FG Angels initiative with AngelList. Our syndicate, which we are going to max out at $450,000, is currently right at $300,000 after one week. We are humbled by all the support and interest.
Geir Freysson, founder of Five Hundred Plus, did a super cool visualization of some of the top syndicates and how the participants in the syndicate relate to each other.
We’ve chosen our first deal to do. But we aren’t ready to pull the trigger yet – probably early next week. We’ve spent the last few days wrestling with some legal / compliance issues. The AngelList gang has been AWESOME to work with. We aren’t surprised that we are having to figure this stuff out – we knew the new JOBS Act rules, 506 compliance, and the ambiguity around a bunch of stuff would be problematic. Yeah – the problems are obscure ones generated by our government, and there are moments where it seems like the SEC simply doesn’t want any of this to actually work. But that’s part of the fun of it.
I continue to be mildly amused and amazed by the prognostications from the sidelines from a variety of folks (angels, angel groups, VCs, and entrepreneurs). Some of the strong opinions are based on virtually no data, or misinformation, or a complete lack of perspective. And others are based on a lack of understanding of dynamic systems. Either way, when asked, I continue to tell people our mantra – the best way to learn about stuff like this is to participate.
So – if you want to participate with us and learn a bunch in the process, join our syndicate.
This morning my partners at Foundry Group and I announced that we are going to make 50 seed investments of $50,000 each on AngelList between now and the end of 2014. We’ll be doing this via AngelList’s new Syndicate approach through an entity called FG Angel where we will create a syndicate of up to $500,000, allowing others to invest $450,000 alongside anything we do. For now, we are using my AngelList account (bfeld) which I’ve renamed Brad Feld (FG Angel). We are working with Naval and team at AngelList to get this set up correctly so that a firm (e.g. Foundry Group) can create the syndicate in the future, at which point we’ll move the activity over to there.
For years, we have had people ask if they can invest alongside us at Foundry Group at the seed level. We’ve never had an entrepreneurs fund, or a side fund, so we’ve encouraged people to invest in Techstars and other seed funds that we are investors in. As of today, we have a new way for people to invest alongside of us – via AngelList’s syndicate. The minimum investment is $1,000 per deal, so if you make a $1,000 commitment to our syndicate, you are committing to investing $50,000 alongside of us between now and the end of 2014 in the best seed investments we can find on AngelList. Simply go to Brad Feld (FG Angels) and click the big blue “Back” button. Special bonus hugs to anyone who backs FG Angels today (as I write this, the first backer has come in – from Paul Sethi – thanks Paul – awesome to be investing with you.)
This is an experiment. If you know us, we love to experiment with stuff, rather than theorize about things. We are huge believes in seed and early stage investing and through a variety of vehicles, including Techstars and our personal investments in other early stage VC funds, have well over 1,000 seed investments that are active. This has created an incredible network that adds to our Foundry Group portfolio. With FG Angel, we are taking this to another level as we begin a set of activities to amplify this network dramatically.
So there is no ambiguity, the investments come from our Foundry Group fund. All economics, including the syndicate carry, go to our fund. We are calling this FG Angel because we are approaching this the same way we do with any angel investment. I’ve written extensively about my own angel investing strategy in the past – you’ll see this reflected in what we are doing here. Over the years my angel strategy has been very successful financially and our goal with FG Angel mirrors that.
We expect we’ll learn a lot about this between now and the end of the year. When we learn, we’ll share what we learn. We believe deeply that the best way to learn about new stuff is to participate. So – off we go. We hope you join us – both in the syndicate and the ensuing network.