Cleveland, OH – North Coast Angel Fund (NCAF) today announced its second investment in as many months: Charitee Golf, a Solon based company that has developed a unique hole-in-one and closest-to-the-pin monitoring solution that offers fun and excitement for golfers, while providing a new source of revenue for golf courses.

Charitee Golf’s system allowsdaily fee golf courses the ability to offer hole-in-one and closest-to-the-pin contests to golfers through outdoor surveillance and kiosk technology.  Charitee delivers this experience with aproprietary solar powered kiosk that is linked by wireless connection withremote monitoring cameras, a local interface system and a remote video monitoring facility. 

Charitee – a JumpStart portfolio company – has incorporated learnings from its early Ohio course placements to significantly improve its business proposition to courses and has recently secured contracts with 8 western courses according to its President, Mike Burkons.  “This is an excellent example of an entrepreneur developing a creative concept and using our region’s economic development and investment resources to grow a high-potential company,” said Clay Rankin, Managing Member of NCAF.  “This type of success is a real credit to the region’s entrepreneurial support system”

The Fund is investing $200,000 in Charitee along with nearly $1 million of private investment capitalfrom individual angel investors including several NCAF members.  “The funding will enable Charitee to expandour immediate presence in the western United States, secure a newly recruited Vice President of Sales, and prepare for a national launch in 2008,” according to Dan Quigg, CEO of Charitee. 

NCAF Executive Director, Todd Federman sees great potential for Charitee. “At a time when golf courses are struggling to compete for player loyalty, the Charitee system is a real winner because it creates more fun and excitement for players while providing a new revenue opportunity for the courses.”

Last week, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher announced that a $2 million Third Frontier Project grant from the Pre-Seed Initiative will be awarded to NCAF. The funding, approved by the Third Frontier Commission, will allow NCAF to make at least 10 additional investments in early-stage technology companies. “Investing in startups always will be risky, but the State’s active support and targeted programs are helping to create powerful new incentives to invest in early-stage Ohio companies.”

About North Coast Angel Fund and Angel Investing

Individual angel investors typically invest in fledgling companies between the “friends-and-family” stage and the venture capital stage. The funding gap in this space has consistently been cited as a major obstacle to entrepreneurial growth in the region.  “Northeast Ohiohas a long tradition of active angel investing, but until now, much of the funding of early stage-ventures has hinged on the efforts of a relatively small number of individual investors,” said Clay Rankin.  “As the region’s first formal angel fund, we are working to dramatically improve the state of early-stage funding by creating a more active and flexible capital environment.”

With a mission of accelerating Ohio’s“early-stage” technology ventures, North Coast Angel Fund (NCAF) represents a new approach to identifying, evaluating and funding the region’s high-potential, early-stage companies.  “The structure of an angel fund allows our members to collectively evaluate a greater number of opportunities, and make smarter, more diversified, and hopefully higher returning investments than would be likely if investing solely as individuals,” said Rankin.

NCAF plans to invest $200,000in a typical company and partner with other institutions or groups in what are typically $750,000 - $1.5 million deals.  The Fund anticipates making 20-30 investments in Ohio-based companies over the next five-to-seven years, with an investment focus on early-stage companies in technology-driven growth industries including life sciences (e.g., medical devices and healthcare services), software and IT services, advanced materials (e.g., polymers, nanotechnology), advanced power generation (e.g., fuel cells), and instruments and controls.

“Due in large part to the economic development efforts of organizations such as JumpStart, NorTech and BioEnterprise, we are seeing a significant number of high-potential opportunities right here in Northeast Ohio,”said Rankin.  “We believe this Fund will add another important piece to the entrepreneurial support network in this region, and that the end result will be job and wealth creation via accelerated success for business start-ups.”

Over the past several years,an increasing number of individual angels have joined together to form angel funds and networks in other parts of the country in order to pool resources and investment expertise.  “The trend of individual angels banding together brings significant benefits for both investors and entrepreneurs,” said Todd Federman.  “Our membership has tremendous experience in creating, growing, and advising early-stage ventures and our hope is that this resource will be at least as valuable to our portfolio companies as the actual capital invested.”

For more information about North Coast Angel Fund, see:  www.northcoastangelfund.com