The New York Angels is a formal organization for angel investors here in New York City to 
capitalize on sharing informationand resources. Most large cities across the country have a similar group. Thanks to Paul Tumpowsky (InSITE Chairman of the Board) and Bronson Lingamfelter (former InSITE Fellow) who recently connected InSITE with the New York Angels, two other InSITE fellows (Marisa Tricarico and Roy Simkhay) and I are now part of the “Future Angels Program.”
As “Future Angels” we attend and actively participate in all of the angels meetings, and so far, the learning experience has been incredible. I am particularly impressed with the organization of the meetings and I am learning the appropriate questions to ask for understanding the fundamentals of a venture in just a 30-minute meeting—the Angel’s ability to quickly zero in on the critical issues is remarkable. I attribute this partially to the informal format of the meetings: a presentation spotted with Q&A is completely practical. This eases the tension for the entrepreneur and prevents the angels from falling behind throughout the presentation. When an entrepreneur struggles to explain the revenue model clearly or convince the angels as to why their marketing campaign will drive eyes to their website, an Angel immediately jumps in with questions and won’t move on until she understands.
Collaborative forums like New York Angels is a big part of what the venture community is about; as Brian Cohen has said, angel investing can be a tough sport. By coming together, the Angels can consider several potential investments at once, and analyze them with peers to spot the successful entrepreneurs and find ways to fund promising ideas. The Angels create opportunities for themselves by forming long-term relationships with entrepreneurs who have impressive backgrounds, or intriguing ideas.
At last month’s meeting, the Angels heard more than ten pitches. Here are my thoughts on a few that I would consider most promising.
NabeWise Media helps movers find the perfect neighborhood while also providing real estate agents with tools to educate their clients—think Yelp! of the real estate market. Due to the “fair housing” laws, Real Estate agents are not allowed to quote neighborhood characteristics such as safety, demographics, trendiness and noise level to their clients. Now, NabeWise gives these brokers a tool to recommend to their clients for getting that critical information. NabeWise’ success hinges on great scalability and marketing potential. CEO Ann Baldinucci hires interns to write initial reviews of various neighborhoods (i.e.: Tribeca, Williamsburg, etc.), which serve as a jumping off point for customers to research and offer their own unique feedback. Scale exists because the interns can review 100 neighborhoods in a month (as a reference point, New York City’s five boroughs have approximately 300 neighborhoods). On the marketing front, Ann is signing subscription partnership deals with large networks of real estate brokers who have provided positive feedback.
SeatGeek is the first website to both reliably scrape data from online ticket brokers and provide price predictor technology. Co-Founder Zack Groetzinger captured the Angel’s attention, proclaiming SeatGeek to be 82% accurate in it’s forecasting. The forecast uses algorithms that plow through millions of compiled ticket transactions and aggregated factors that influence ticket prices. These algorithms give SeatGeek a current competitive advantage that keeps their product superior to all other ticket aggregators and online broker sites. SeatGeek earns revenue through relationships with secondary ticket markets and has begun signing revenue sharing deals with many content sites. SeatGeek has the potential to become the next Kayak of the ticket world and for now they have gained another customer: me.
SpyderLynk creates a “snaptag”—a company’s logo with a unique (bar) code ring—that allows the consumer to interact with a company through a new marketing channel. Using mobile devices, consumers take a picture of a snaptag, which is strategically placed in a magazine or other advertisement, and then send the picture to the sponsor company. In doing so, the consumer enters into a game, wins prizes or receives coupons—the marketing and branding possibilities are endless. SpyderLynk reminds me of stickybits, in the way that both companies are creating connections between the physical and digital worlds. SpyderLynk has created a new way to build a brand, however, its success depends on (1) signing branded companies and (2) a smart marketing campaign to educate and attract customers who want to use the posted snaptags. SpyderLynk has a few name brands signed up, but for what seems like a trial, so I do not know how strong their biz dev and marketing campaigns are. This startup may be a concept that needs further development before finding investors, but for now, the angels have remained in contact.
-This article was originally posted by InSITE here: http://insiteny.org/media/2010/04/23/insite-partners-with-the-new-york-angels/
their business to New York City based venture capitalists. In addition to the other investors in the crowd, a panel of VCs provided feedback on the individual pitches. The panel included Morgan Rodd of