North Coast Angel Fund LLC in Cleveland has made its firstinvestment - $200,000 in Exacter Inc., a Columbus startupthat has developed a power outage-avoidance system forelectric utilities.

Members of North Coast Angel Fund committed an additional$150,000 in "sidecar" funding to Exacter. And theOhio TechAngel Fund in Columbus has committed another$150,000, bringing to $500,000 the amount raised in theinvestment round.

"Exacter is committed to helping power generationcompanies prevent power outages and the high costs thatresult," said John Lauletta, the company's chiefexecutive, in a written statement. Lauletta lives in Hudsonand commutes to Columbus.

"We do this through a patented, GPS-enabledtechnology that identifies and predicts distribution lineequipment failures before they happen by identifyingequipment failure emissions in the field," he said.

The Exacter system, which is made up of off-the-shelfhardware and software enclosed in a small, hard case, istypically carried in utility vehicles. The unit takesreadings from electrical lines as it travels in the vehicle,"looking" for problems that might eventuallydisrupt power.

"When electric lines arc, it's bad," saidTodd Federman, executive director of the North Coast AngelFund. "When they arc, they set off radiofrequencies."

Electric utility workers have learned to identify thesearcs by turning on their AM radios and listening for thestatic, Federman said. The Exacter system packages a radiowave receiver with global positioning satellite technologyto identify and precisely locate electrical problems. Thesystem uses software and a database that learns from radiowave patterns to analyze and report on the problems.

Exacter plans to use its investments from angels - wealthyindividual investors - to finish field testing itstechnology, start making and selling it, and launch a Webportal at which customers can get information.

The North Coast Angel Fund was created last year to makepre-seed investments largely in bioscience, advancedmaterials, electronics and controls, information technology,and energy and power/propulsion startups.

Often there is no one place where entrepreneurs can findangels. "There has been an uncoordinated kind offunding available for these early-stage companies,"said Clay Rankin, the fund's managing member.

Rankin and Federman try to coordinate the investment ofthe $2.6 million from 99 angel investors, who are members intheir fund. The two have looked at more than 150 potentialinvestments since October.

"We're actually making it easier forentrepreneurs to gain access to capital," Rankin said.

The North Coast Angel Fund also has a commitment fromOhio: $800,000 in matching funds from the Third Frontierprogram, Federman said.

The fund also has applied for an additional $2 milliongrant from the Third Frontier's Pre-Seed FundInitiative.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

mvanac@plaind.com, 216-999-5302