Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

The organizing committee of the Utah Angel Investor of the Year has announced the top 15 finalists.  Here is the list:

• Alan Hall
• Craig Earnshaw
• David Carter
• Gary Williams
• Hal Widlansky
• JD Gardner
• John Richards
• Kent Thomas
• Kyle Love
• Mark Madsen
• Martin Frey
• Nobu Mutaguchi
• Robert Kunz
• Scott Frazier
• Warren Osborn

If you are in Utah, the event is next Tuesday — make sure you register!

• Tuesday June 23rd
• 11:30 am to 1:30 pm
• Hilton Alpine Room, 255 S. West Temple, SLC, UT
• $25/seat, $200/table (includes lunch)
• www.investoroftheyear.org

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I mentioned a few weeks back that we were conducting some in-depth research on Angel Investing.  Well, on Tuesday, we shared some more information with the world as the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum asked us to speak on the “State of Angel Investing in Utah.”

Here are a few highlights of the presentation:

• 60 active angel investors surveyed
• The economy significantly affected angel investing as of November 2008
• Average number of angels/deal = 4.26
• 72% of investments had a pre-money valuation between $750k and $3M
• 85% of angel investments were less than $1M
• 55% of investments were in software/technology/SaaS deals
• 65% of investments were some type of preferred equity

Intrigued? Feel free to download the “State of Angel Investing in Utah” via PDF.  Please make appropriate attributions. 

DISCLAIMER:  This data is still very early in the process.  We are still collecting data and I am definitely not a statitician.

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working with the local community to put together the first-ever Angel Investor of the Year Award here in Utah.  We’ve partnered with several entrepreneurial-minded organizations to put it on and, thus far, it’s been a great process.  Nominations were open for about 6 weeks and it was amazing to see the variety of nominations that were submitted.  From the most well-known angel to the “under the radar” individual — we received them all.

After receiving nominations, our organizing committee interviewed each of the nominees to find out responses to questions like:

• Tell us about how you got into angel investing?
• Tell us about your portfolio companies and investment history.
• What are your motivations for angel investing?
• etc.

As you can imagine, they have been some fascinating interviews!  Anyway, the committee has met and narrowed down the list to a group of finalists — which should be announced tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Oh yeah… one more thing.  For those of you in Utah, the can’t-miss award luncheon will be next Tuesday (June 23rd) at the Hilton in downtown SLC.   Click here to register.

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