Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we (at FundingUniverse) have a unique perspective in the Utah entrepreneurial community because we often get to see the upcoming deals before they are really known to the public.  For instance, Zinch is one those companies that is now getting a lot of attention (both here in Utah and elsewhere) and we started to work with them back in January of this year.

As I have thought about that, I have decided that I’m probably doing a disservice to the upcoming companies and the Utah entrepreneurial community by not blogging about those deals that are exciting.  So, here goes the first post (of many) highlighting some of the exciting companies that we’ve seen at FundingUniverse.  Here are a couple that are on the top of my mind:

1. Zinch:  Led by 4 young entrepreneurs — Mick Hagen, Sid Krommenhoek, Brad Hagen, and Ryan Caldwell — this company is growing quickly by allowing high school students build their own college admissions recruiting profile.  They say it best… “I am more than a test score.”  Zinch pitched at one of our SpeedPitching events and has successfully raised a seed round of capital.
2. InfoSquire:  InfoSquire is a data “mashup” company that provides a fantastic service for any company that wants to gather information (RSS feeds, website info, internal info, spreadsheets, etc.) and serve it to the consumer in a very useful manner.  We started working with Chris Crabtree and Brett Haskins a few months ago and they are well on their way to success.  They pitched at our SpeedPitching event and we’ve introduced them to Highway 12 Ventures, Brad Feld, Utah Angels, Olympus Angels, and Wasatch Ventures.  They have also garnered interest from vSpring & Flywheel Ventures.  Anxious to see what happens over the next few months.
3. GivePlay:  GivePlay also came to one of our SpeedPitching events.  I believe that they are trying to be somewhat “stealth” with their operations… so I won’t go into much detail about what they do.  Let’s just say that they are entering a huge market (independent gamers) and are building an amazing technology.  They have received strong investor interest also and I believe that they are close to a term sheet (if they haven’t got one yet).
4. There is another company that has already received a term sheet lately too, but I know that they want to stay completely stealth.  I’ll keep you posted as they come out of stealth mode.

These 4 companies are those that are on the top of my mind… there are a lot of other exciting companies too, so I’ll try to write about them more regularly.

Small Disclaimer:  I don’t want people to think that we (FundingUniverse or me) are taking credit for the success of these companies… we’re just happy to play a small part in their fundraising efforts and I thought that I would give them some deserved “props”.