Graduate Blog / Graduate Life

Angel Investors get-together at Babson

Throughout the year Babson will have its fair share of Investors visit campus. The buzz of which investor is visiting campus provides a surreal reminder of how fertile this environment is and to make the best of our time here at Babson. On October 15th Babson’s Knight Auditorium provided meeting accommodations for the Boston Harbor Angels, one of the country’s top Angel Investor networks. The meeting was attended by approximately 70 people, most of them qualified investors of the Boston Harbor Angels organization. However, several guest visitors raised the count to a number likely greater than 70 attendees. The visitors provided sound opinion on business models, legal matters, and financing. The response to the entrepreneur pitches ranged from bubbly to caustic but everyone listened attentively. All throughout there certainly was an air of readiness about the presentations, on both sides, attendants wanted a deal. The angels heard from 4 entrepreneurs at this meeting. Each entrepreneur had completed at least a “close friends and family” round of funding. Each company had existing operations to speak of and all were looking towards growth. The entrepreneurs gave presentations between 5 and 10 minutes in length, afterwards, they were asked to leave the room whilst the Angel’s raised hands to see who had initial interest in the company.

Of note for any who are interested in raising funds via the Angel network, it’s a relatively small community of individuals who mostly know each other across the nation. A referral and invitation to present is the way in the door, beware however, news of a botched transaction with an Angel may travel quickly within this community.

Though it was a closed door event, I managed a few interviews afterward.  Below I’ve included some insight from entrepreneur Greg Sommer who pitched his company, Sandstone Diagnostics.  Sandstone has designed and built an innovative centrifuge apparatus to test blood samples for a variety of analysis.  They were funded early on by a grant from the National Institute of Health for their “SpinDX” technology.  Most recently the company has focused on using the technology to help couples monitor fertility levels from the convenience of home.  They pitched on this day to the group of Boston Harbor Angels for follow on funding to commercialize the technology.  “Don’t cook your balls” is the creative marketing campaign the company is launching to promote their at-home fertility testing system.

SpinDx centrifuge technology

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Founder, Greg Sommer, PhD talks about raising angel funding

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Angel Investors shares thoughts on fundraising

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