Commmon Angels Invests at Record-Tying Pace

Still 15 days  ‘till Christmas and, with 21 investments,  the Common Angels have already tied their record for total investments in a year.  Eight of these are new companies, tying the Common Angels recent high for new investments set in 2010, and almost reaching their high water mark of  9 new investments set in 2000 during the very early years of  the group. 

“We are very proud of the entrepreneurs we get to work with and what they are accomplishing,” says Common Angels Managing Director James Geshwiler.

Along with these totals, the Common Angels also announced their participation in five recent financings involving variegated venture capital firms and angels.

TrueLens  provides the first customer record for CRM and digital marketers.   The $1.2 million funding round was led by Google Ventures, with funding from Charles River Ventures, Common Angels, 500 Startups, and Boston Seed, and from angel investors, including HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah, Tremor SVP Waikit Lau, InfoChimps co-founder Nick Ducoff, and John Simon, former board member at BzzAgent and m-Qube.

Boston-area open-source sync and share startup ownCloud Inc. has closed a $2.5 million financing, its second seed round of venture capital. Common Angels and 13 unnamed investors were led by General Catalyst Partners of Cambridge.

Doctrackr , a TechStars company, helps individuals and businesses keep their documents under control, know wherever they're stored,  and whomever they're shared with. DocTrackr is backed by Polaris Venture Partners and Atlas Venture, Common Angels and Alive Ideas. Now it's an international company - docTrackr has offices in Boston, Paris and Bucharest.

TechStars Boston 2011 grad Promoboxx, a startup offering a brand-to-retailer marketing platform, has raised an additional investment of $1.375 million to close its Series Seed round of financing. The company’s investors include Launch Capital, Boston Seed, SK Ventures, Common Angels, Stage 1 Ventures, and over 30 angels. In December of last year, Promoboxx raised $565,000 from SK Ventures, Brand Ventures, Launch Capital, and various angels. Angel investors in Promoboxx include Jean Hammond, Walt Winshall, Michael Mark, Mike Dornbrook, Rich Greenfield, Adam Berrey, Dave Balter, David Kaufmann, and many others

HapYak , the social video commentary platform, announced that $850,000 in seed funding has been secured to expand and build upon its platform. This round of funding was led by Kepha Partners with participation and coordination from CommonAngels of Boston and angel investor, Tom Burgess, former CEO of Third Screen Media

For reference, the Common Angels have one exit this year, Vela Systems.

Our congratulations, Common Angels!

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Shark Tank Boston to Feature Local Angels, Entrepreneurs

On Oct. 25, a panel of Boston’s best known early stage investors will invest $100K among six competing companies, using a distinguished format derived from the Shark Tank reality TV show.  A list of 70 applying companies will be pared down this week. Panelists include:

Katie Rae (Techstars)

Lucy McQuilken (Intel Capital)
Mike Troiano (Techstars Mentor)

Joe Caruso (Top Angel)
Dharmesh Shah (Top Angel)
Fred Destin (Atlas Ventures)
Jen Lum (Top Angel)
Nicole Stata (Boston Seed Capital)
Dave Balter (Top Angel)

Should you be unfamiliar with the Shark Tank TV format, you can find it on the ABC web site. “The panel of five Sharks will hear pitches of the best business and product ideas from some of America's brightest entrepreneurs, ranging from start-ups from stay-at-home moms and dads, to simple yet brilliant ideas in a wide range of areas including children's products, music, sports, automotive, and even the nightclub scene.” A couple of these brilliant ideas that went unfunded included a Human Powered Monorail System and Beer Flavored Ice Cream.

TV Sharks include billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of HDNet and the Dallas Mavericks, Lori Greiner, inventor of retail products considered the "Queen of QVC,"  real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran, technology innovator Robert Herjavec, fashion and branding expert Daymond John and venture capitalist Kevin O'Leary, who we all know has also been called Mr. Wonderful (by himself, of course). These panelists are quite rude, both to the entrepreneurs and to one another.

If you don’t believe me, you can view this with your own lying eyes on ABC at 8PM Fridays (Ch. 5 in MA, 9 in NH).

Let us now praise famous Angels.  You might have noticed that I identified four of our local panelists as “Top Angels.” That was because Xconomy recently named them among the 34 top angel investors of New England.   You can see their photos in the  slideshow here. 

So what can we expect when we pair local our very qualified local angels with the reality TV format? According to the Sponsors, “it’s going to be a fun and wild and a hot mess – and not without its fair share of nail-biting, sweat-inducing drama. The Sharks don’t invest lightly and companies who dare to enter the tank must be on their game.”

Was Oscar Wilde right when he held that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"?  Is reality TV Art? We’ll all find out on October 25. If you are a panelist, wear your sharkskin suit.

A question that arises: if Shark Tank becomes our model for angel investing might Jersey Shore set the tone for our summer vacations?
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The Boston Shark Tank was conceived by BzzAgent and is being hosted as part of MITX’s FutureM week. The event will be held from 4-6 PM at the Microsoft NERD Center on October 25th. You must have a FutureM ticket to attend.