Seeking Angels: Interview with Karen Rands as President of NBA&IWe have joined forces with the Atlanta Urban League to form the Progressive Investor Network. This network
will be a special interest group within the Network of Business Angels and Investors and seek to encourage the wealthy in Atlanta to get involved in building a thriving investor community. We all
recognize it is time for successful business owners to give back by investing time and money into other fledgling business.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle did a full interview of Lucy Holifield of the Atlanta Urban League and Karen Rands of NBA&I.
You can read the full article here: Searching for Angels
So What Can Atlanta Do to build it's Investor CommunityAccording to Claritas, a research firm, Atlanta will have over 100,000 Millionaires by the year 2011....that
is measured as households with over $1 Million in investable assets excluding their primary residence and consumables.
As discretionary income grows, these millionaires have a choice. They can give it away to a charity....a good
and needed thing to do. They can buy more toys and luxery....a fun thing to do but not much long term reward.
Or they can get involved in angel investing, also know as private equity investing, business ownership, and alternative investing.
Although one of the most risky types of investing, it can be the most rewarding. It produces the greatest wealth,
creates the most jobs, impacts the economy at multiple levels, and provides an opportunity to share one's business and marketing
experience. Most people don't know these things about angel investors:
- Created more jobs in the U.S. last year than Venture Capital firms.
- Get a bigger return on investment than Venture Capital and Private Equity firms
- Average individual investment is $30,000
- Average Active investors will invest between $100,000 and $500,000 in a year across many companies
- Investors can invest through their 401K and IRA to manage to tax impact of the capital gain
- Investors also lend money for short term gain and can use other assets to secure loans for companies, while getting interest,
principal and shares in return.
Get involved. Begin to learn How to Be an Angel Investor if you are new, or contact us about the next meeting to plug into if you are already involved. Email Karen
New York Venture Forum Results-June 24thWe went to New York at the end of June to attend two venture capital forums. It was amazing how different
the capital markets were. Of course, I knew Atlanta was different than New York, but I really didn't feel the full impact
until we attended these two events, met over 100 investors, and learned from many VCs on panel discussions. Here
are my observations:
- There are simply more active investors. It seemed like almost every name tag had either the word venture or
capital on it.
- The investors understood that they needed to show up to show a commitment to the investor community at large even if they
weren't interested in the particular companies.
- They were very open to referring other investors to opportunities and connecting each other in the spirit of collaboration.
- Most of the investors had had a successful run in another company or had made their wealth in a family business or real
estate, and were now committed to helping other companies grow.
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