Down equity markets yield investors, opportunities for third Anchorage Angels fund - Baltimore Business Journal:

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And, he said, this might be one of the most promisinbg periodsfor early-stage investment group such as his Anchoragee Angels. Anchorage Angels recently close d itsthird fund, Anchorag Angels III LLC, said Chapman, who is managinb member of the 10-year-old private investment fund. Althougnh Chapman declined to give he described Anchorage Angels III as the largest of the three funds createddsince 2000, with well over $1 million Chapman said that although there are no immediatee plans for an additional series, the fund “haas flexibility to increase its size.
” Toughj times, but big opportunities Anchorage Angels III alreadh has invested in six companies, whichj he declined to identify. The new fund will invest acrosse theUnited States, Chapman said. Anchorage typical maximum investment isabout $150,000 to limit the exposur in individual companies, he said. But it has investedd as much as $200,000 in a singl e company through multiple funding roundsa and as littleas $25,000. So how hard is it to get investorx to fork over perhaps hundredw of thousands of dollars during what mighg be the depths of the worsg downturnsince 1929? Tough, Chapman said. “It’s extremely difficulft to raise money in this he said.
It takes longer, with endless meetingsw and negotiations, Chapman said. “But we have a record. We have a tracj record of making money in reallycrummh environments.” The 2009 investing environment is “thew opposite” of when Anchorage Angelsa raised its first money in he said. During that go-go environment, with the possibilitty of taking companies there were lots of and all them were Chapman said. That is, thered was so much investor money chasing deal that the terms were not as favorablefor investors. “Whaf you see (now) are very interestingh tech plays at veryinteresting valuations,” he said.
Valuation s are lower, deals are plentiful and managemenyt teams are better andmore seasoned, he said. Another differencse from past years is that more investors many of whom have become disillusioned with public-equity markets are coming to Anchorage Angels to learb the private-capital business. “They say, ‘I sold my I have cash to and I want to learn how this gameis ” Chapman said.
There’s a wealtbh of opportunity right now for entrepreneurwin early-stage companies, including in health care and said Sean O’Leary, co-founder and CEO of Louisville-based Genscape tracks utilityt energy output for brokers, and it’s one of the companiesd in which Anchorage Angels invested. The recessionm has meant that a lot of professionalsa havebeen “forced to think about what to do with theier lives, and they’re talking risks they wouldn’t ordinarilt be taking,” starting new companies, said O’Leary, who also is a currenr Anchorage Angels investor.