By Tarah Haack
WisBusiness.com
Stateline Angels, an angel investing group in Rockford Ill., has been assisting start-up companies finance their business endeavors since 2004. Not only do these angels provide nascent companies with funding, but they also give advice, mentoring and consulting to the firms in which they invest.
“Our goal is to apply our expertise and a portion of our assets to earn above average investment returns by helping individuals create and build successful new companies,” said Stateline Angels president Dale Falconer.
The Statewide Angels are by no means inexperienced when it comes to offering up the best in business advice. Criteria for becoming a Stateline Angel include having built one or more successful companies, having a successful track record of investing in early-stage companies, and have a whopping individual net worth in excess of $1 million.
Falconer said that Stateline Angels include Rockford-area business executives, attorneys, physicians, and entrepreneurs.
“Our members are accredited investors who have started and run companies and practices and have significant operational experience across a variety of businesses and industries,” he said.
The Stateline Angels are focused on returning capital to their local community. According to Falconer, the members of the group “have a sense of local interest and define our radius as three to four hour drive.”
Falconer said there is “plenty of good deal flow in the area,” and that Stateline “reviews at least two deals every month.”
Ventures in which angels invest tend to be in similar fields where they found entrepreneurial success themselves. Typical Stateline Angel investments lie within the fields of manufacturing, information technology and life sciences.
Recent studies have shown that the success of angel firms is linked to interconnected communication and membership. By pooling resources, angels can make their goods stretch farther to touch more entrepreneurs.
This is one of the reasons why Stateline has joined forces with WAN, the Wisconsin Angel Network. Stateline hopes the affiliation will increase “access to early stage companies located in the Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin region that are seeking equity funding,” according to Falconer.
In addition to linking arms with WAN, the Stateline Angels have also joined up with Rockford Area Ventures, EIGERlab, EDGE, and the Illinois Technology Development Alliance. The Stateline Angels are also a member of the Angel Capital Association.
Through angel associations, team efforts and converging resources can add extra financial zip to companies attempting to take off. Not only do partnerships assist in funding, they spread the word about bright entrepreneurs and help investors to branch out.
“As a result of the increased exposure, we have seen a significant increase in the number of deals that we have the opportunity to review,” said Stateline Angels vice president DeWayne Fellows.
The Stateline Angels have most recently invested $450,000 in Atometric, Inc., a manufacturer of micro-machines for metal milling and cutting. That total is significantly higher than Stateline’s more standard investment of $100,000 to $300,000.
Atometric specializes in producing micro-machinery as small as the head of a pin. Prior to advancements made by Atometric, miniature machine parts were not durable to the stresses of factory work, but precise enough for desktop workstations.
Because many of the Stateline Angels have successful backgrounds in the manufacturing industry, investing in Atometric hit close to home.
“There isn’t much about manufacturing that among us we don’t already know so we approached our investment in Atometric from a hard business point of view,” Falconer said.
The micro-machinery company was a perfect match for Stateline members, who were looking to invest in “an early stage portfolio company.” Because the fields of nanotechnology and micro-machinery are fast-expanding, the Stateline Angels were eager for the opportunity.
“Our members recognized that Atometric offers a solution that is seriously needed and particularly unique,” Falconer said.
Haack is a student in the UW-Madison Department of Life Sciences Communication.
