In February Sandy Wollman, Marty Isaac, and myself worked with the Angel Capital Association to evolve New England & New York’s syndication process to work for more angel groups. Angels from New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania came together to test out our new approach to syndicating deals. Representatives from other syndication groups from as far as the west coast attended as well.

And it worked!

• New England angels (who’ve been coming to the prior version of this structure for 10+ years) reported it was the highest quality dealflow they’d seen at a syndication event.
• Non-New England angels said it was fast, efficient, and full of high-quality deals. They wanted to bring the event and deal-sharing design to their regions.
• Overwhelmingly people loved our new approach to facilitate effective networking in zoom meeting.
• Entrepreneurs said they received high quality connections to investors and their odds of securing funding were higher here than any other large group meeting they’d attended.

What’s next:

• Collecting more data on efficacy – we need a few more weeks to see how many of those presenters did raise money thanks to the event.
• Adding more groups to our process.
• Improving our tech & processes to handle growing volume.
• Experimenting with ways to create a “fast track” to allow entrepreneurs to move through the due diligence process much faster. We do this not by cutting out due diligence, but by leveraging the due diligence of other angels that have already invested.