Tag: angel investors

Introducing the new OurCrowd social investor app!

Introducing the new OurCrowd social investor app!

May 11, 2016 | ,

The team at OurCrowd is proud to announce the launch of our new social investor app! Yesterday, our Chief Product Officer Shai Ben-Tovim took the stage at Finovate Spring San Jose to present and live-demo the OurCrowd App, which provides investors with unprecedented access to deal-flow, real time investment information, and greater connectivity to OurCrowd’s 12,000 strong global community. The OurCrowd App empowers investors by making investment discovery, discussion, and decisions more insightful, robust, and connected. “Until now, private investing has been conducted in a very traditional, old fashioned and often inefficient way. We are bringing the benefits of connected mobile commerce to the start-up investing market.” ~ OurCrowd’s Founder and CEO, Jon Medved The OurCrowd App features include: High quality, professionally-vetted dealflow: Choose how deeply to dive into diligence material, including video, webinars, articles, and the OurTake report. Personalized Deal Rooms: All investment opportunities and diligence material are organized in your own private, secure deal rooms on the app. Share, discuss and review: Invite trusted contacts to join your deal room chat to rate and discuss opportunities. New sources of insight: Discover and curate insight, expertise and opinions from OurCrowd’s investor...

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Not just another acquisition headline

Not just another acquisition headline

Mar 16, 2016 | ,

If you are like me — an innovation and entrepreneurship enthusiast — then you get excited when you read headlines about the latest acquisition of a startup by a large multinational corporation. You get excited on behalf of the startup’s founders and team that they have reached the culmination of what must have been an incredible journey. You get excited about the possibility that the integration will go well, and that with the large company’s resources behind it, the startup’s technology can soar to new heights. If the company being acquired is local, you get excited about what this means for your tech ecosystem: more talented, experienced employees and management now available to help the next wave of local startups scale, and potentially more capital flowing in now that investors are paying a little bit closer attention. Most people, however, read the headline, process it, and move on. This is understandable given what little impact the merger or acquisition will have on their lives or on the lives of anyone they know. While they may be happy for the presumed financial success of the startup’s...

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The million-dollar question: What kind of angel investor are you?

The million-dollar question: What kind of angel investor are you?

Mar 8, 2016 | ,

As an angel investor, you already likely know (or soon will) that there is a long list of young technology companies and enthusiastic entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas, ready to pitch to you in the hopes of securing an investment. For example: OurCrowd screens at least 200 companies a month before we choose who to meet, and of those, the 2-4% to invest in and present to our accredited investor community. In addition, we have our own set of criteria for who and what we’ll offer as investment opportunities. So… how do you identify investments? How do you choose which company’s deck to review, which CEO to meet with? Most likely, as an angel investor, you fit a certain type. Knowing what drives you to invest in a particular startup may help you consolidate the time and energy that goes into your investing strategy. Stage Most angel investors are interested in seed or early-stage companies. Certainly, growth-oriented companies are the ones in most need of angel funding, as VCs typically invest when a company already shows long-term growth potential. But if you are an investor...

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Who’s afraid of the big bad bear? An internal memo on startup investing during a down market

Who’s afraid of the big bad bear? An internal memo on startup investing during a down market

Feb 17, 2016 | ,

Last month, I traveled to the VC and financial capitals of the world – Silicon Valley and New York City – for meetings with VCs and potential investment opportunities, plus a few days of meetings at CES, the largest consumer technology conference in the world. Being another tough week for the financial markets, it was an interesting time to take such a trip. Here are some of my thoughts that I wrote up initially as an internal memo after returning, and decided to share with our broader community. While we generally spend our time focusing on the micro side of investing – companies, their teams, the competition, the technological and business advantages — it is important that we remember that investment opportunities do not exist in a vacuum. We need to raise our eyes to view the broader picture. Below, I discuss: The overall global investing environment What it means that valuations are coming down Takeaways: Private market investing during a public market downturn But… good companies will continue to be built, raise capital and create wealth OurCrowd in the...

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Risk and Reward: The truth about diversification

Risk and Reward: The truth about diversification

Feb 2, 2016 | , ,

It is a common misconception that investing in startups is for the uber-wealthy, venture capital and angel investing insiders; being exclusive and risky — an alternative asset class where losing is part of the strategy. Venture capitalists leaders highlight how often you lose before you win. Thought leader Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures says, “Investing in startups is risky. If you make just one investment, you are likely going to lose everything. If you make two, you are still likely to lose money. If you make five, you might get all your money back across all five investments. If you make ten, you might start making money on the aggregate set of investments.” How Much to Invest That being said, no one will advise you to put a large percentage of your savings into early stage companies. However, if you allocate 5% of your overall portfolio into startup investments you can increase returns and reduce risk. According to a SharesPost whitepaper, if you allocate 5% of your investments to private growth companies, you can increase the returns of a traditional portfolio by...

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