IRVINE, Calif. – May 11, 2017 – Tech Coast Angels (TCA) today announced that it had invested a total of $3.8 million in 17 total deals for the quarter ending March 31, 2017—its best Q1 in the angel network’s 20-year history both in dollars and number of companies invested. Southern California companies received 99% of the investment dollars, which reinforces TCA’s commitment to its local startup ecosystem. All but one of the investments for the quarter were early stage: Seed Equity, Series A or bridge to Series A funding, and with 93% of total dollars invested into nine new companies.
The nine new companies were Buy It Installed, Carepoynt, Cherryvale Farms, Conectric, Echo Laboratories Inc., InvestED, Mobilize Solutions, OnRamp, and Tot Squad.
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the dollars invested went into companies already in revenue, reflecting the trend of angel investments in companies with an already-developed minimum viable product and showing evidence of traction with customers.
“Today’s information shows the strength of our local entrepreneurial ecosystem and of TCA as a group,” said Jeff Draa, Chairman of Tech Coast Angels. “Unlike other angel networks who’ve reported a shift towards follow-on investing, and unlike our experience in 2014 and 2015 when the majority of our investments were in follow-on rounds, our Q1 2017 investments show a tremendous upsurge in new deals, reflecting strong excitement by our members about new opportunities.”
TCA also realized three exits in Q1 2017:
- Savara Pharmaceuticals (a pulmonary pharmaceutical company) announced it would become a public company (NASDAQ (SVRA)) through its merger with MAST;
- WeGoLook (an on-demand field services company) was acquired by Crawford & Co., yielding a return to TCA of 8x in less than three years;
- Everystory (a digital therapeutic company) repositioned itself as a publicly traded life sciences company Dthera Sciences — a digital therapeutic treatment for dementia
“TCA members are investing in early-stage businesses that they can help to succeed with far more than just financial support,” continued Mr. Draa. “Our members offer guidance, direction and connections in addition to investment capital.”