REGION’S FIRST ANGEL FUND ANNOUNCESFIRST INVESTMENT
Cleveland, OH – North CoastAngel Fund (NCAF) today announced its first investment in Exacter, Inc, a Columbus based providerof remote/wireless electric power fault detection equipment and information services.
The Fund is investing$200,000 in Exacter and its members have committed an additional $150,000 of“sidecar” funding. Sidecar funding isthe optional follow-on investment made by individual members of NCAF. Additionally, the Ohio TechAngel Fund in Columbus is committed tojoining NCAF with an investment of $150,000.
“Exacter is committed tohelping power generation companies prevent power outages and the high coststhat result,” said John Lauletta, CEO of Exacter. “We do this through a patented, GPS enabledtechnology that identifies and predicts distribution line equipment failuresbefore they happen by identifying equipment failure emissions in the field.”
“Exacter is precisely thekind of high-potential, technology-oriented company that North Coast Angel Fundwas established to serve,” said Clay Rankin, Managing Member of NCAF. “It is a great example of innovation in Ohio that could have a nationaland perhaps global impact.” Rankin alsocredits several of the State’s economic development programs such as the ThirdFrontier Program and the TITC (Ohio’sTechnology Investment Tax Credit) for creating a healthy growth environment foryoung companies. “Investing in startupswill always be risky, but many of the State’s targeted programs are helping tocreate powerful new incentives to invest in early-stage Ohio companies.”
The Exacter detection unit iscontained in a small, portable, protected case that is typically carried on a utilityvehicle. As the vehicle drives itsregular route, the unit looks for problems. The unit detects RF signals emanating from power lines and interpretsthem to identify conditions that could lead to outages. Each night, the unit wirelessly uploads theinformation and, with GPS technology, provides the power company with a map ofpotential problem areas.
NCAF Executive Director, ToddFederman sees great potential for Exacter. “The issue of electrical outages isa big problem for electric utilities, businesses and individuals….we allremember the enormous costs and frustrations associated with the 2004 EastCoast blackout. Exacter offers asolution that may help prevent just that type of massive outage as well as helplocal electric companies develop better maintenance strategies.”
About North CoastAngel Fund and Angel Investing
Individual angel investorstypically invest in fledgling companies between the “friends-and-family” stageand the venture capital stage. The funding gap in this space has consistentlybeen 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 thefunding of early stage-ventures has hinged on the efforts of a relatively smallnumber of individual investors,” said Clay Rankin. “Asthe region’s first formal angel fund, we are working to dramatically improvethe state of early-stage funding by creating a more active and flexible capitalenvironment.”
With a mission ofaccelerating Ohio’s“early-stage” technology ventures, the recently formed North Coast Angel Fund(NCAF) represents a new approach to identifying, evaluating and funding theregion’s high-potential, early-stage companies. “The structure of an angel fund allows our members to collectivelyevaluate a greater number of opportunities, and make smarter, more diversified,and hopefully higher returning investments than would be likely if investing solelyas individuals,” said Rankin.
NCAF plans to invest $200,000in a typical company and partner with other institutions or groups in what aretypically $750,000 -$1.5 million deals. TheFund anticipates making 20-30 investments in Ohio-based companies over the nextfive-to-seven years, with an investment focus on early-stage companies intechnology driven growth industries including life sciences (e.g., medicaldevices 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 theeconomic development efforts of organizations such as JumpStart, NorTech andBioEnterprise, we are seeing a significant number of high-potentialopportunities right here in Northeast Ohio,”said Rankin. “We believe this Fund willadd another important piece to the entrepreneurial support network in thisregion, and that the end result will be job and wealth creation via acceleratedsuccess for business start-ups.”
Over the past several years,an increasing number of individual angels have joined together to form angelfunds and networks in other parts of the country in order to pool resources andinvestment expertise. “The trend ofindividual angels banding together brings significant benefits for bothinvestors and entrepreneurs,” said Todd Federman. “Our membership has tremendous experience increating, growing, and advising early-stage ventures and our hope is that thisresource will be at least as valuable to our portfolio companies as the actual capitalinvested.”
For more information about NorthCoast Angel Fund, see: www.northcoastangelfund.com