I was recently introduced to Springboard Capital, an angel fund based in Jacksonville. They are on their 2nd fund and are looking to make investments throughout the Southeast. They visited Georgia Tech and ATDC to learn about the early stage deals in Atlanta.
This could be another good source of seed money for entrepreneurs. Their group is capable of making $500K investments, but they are also well connected with other angel groups and can help pull together larger deals.
Springboard is actually a fund, rather than just a group of angels making individual decisions, therefore they operate more like a VC firm.
What does this mean? Well, there are two main ways that angel groups operate…
- Individual decisions – A company presents to the group and the individual angels decide if they personally want to put money into the company. All the interested individuals get together and decide on terms and deal structure. The uninterested angels don’t participate. Example: Atlanta Technology Angels
- Angel fund – All the angels put a certain amount of money into a "pot" and the investments are made from that fund. Usually there is an executive committee or subset of the angels that make the final decisions on which companies to invest in. Even the angels that might not like the deal are still investing in the deal because they contributed to the fund. Example: Springboard Capital