

Open Deals angel funding application (Is this legitimate?) - bouncingsoul
http://www.open-deals.com/

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Jschwa
I work at Angelsoft which also runs Open-Deals.com

If you are looking for funding your first stop should be your local Angel
group. There is no substitution for that. Our CEO, David S. Rose, Chairman of
the New York Angels, would give you the same advice.

After 4 years in the Angel Investment industry, we have consolidated most of
the worlds groups onto a single platform called Angelsoft. Go to most any
Angel group website and click apply, you will be brought to an application
page powered by Angelsoft.

We received hundreds of emails from entrepreneurs asking us how they can apply
to all of the groups using our system. In response, we created open-deals.com
which allows you to do just that. It is an open directory built into Angelsoft
that allows Angels to browse through deals, and refer ones that interest them
into their own group for further review. You can see what open-deals.com looks
like from an Angel prospective here:
[http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008/04/17/sneak-peek-what-does-
op...](http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008/04/17/sneak-peek-what-does-opendeals-
look-like-to-investors/)

The challenge came in protecting the Angels that use our system from an
avalanche of poor quality deals. Angel groups told us that one of the ways
they filter out poor quality deals is by charging a submission fee. The theory
is that if you are serious enough to pay $250, you are more likely to be a
serious entrepreneur.

I hope that clears up some confusion. Feel free to ask questions, I will be
monitoring this discussion,

Jason Schwartz Community Manager

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pg
It looks dubious. I hadn't heard of them before this. And the reference to 400
angel groups seems misleading, because they're presumably local groups.

Never pay to pitch, basically.

~~~
innonate
Could be that it looks dubious, but it's actually really legit.

I'm a startup (BricaBox.com) in the incubator downstairs from AngelSoft. My
roommate has been working on their biz dev for the past two years (I found him
the job on CL actually) -- so I know first hand that they really did go out
and spend two years and get all these big, legit angel groups on their
platform (think: Basecamp for Angel networks).

Anywho, now that they have these groups using the platform, they're opening it
up for us to be submit deals, solving the problem I'm sure many of you feel:
networking outside your local network (I know tons of angels in NYC, but even
as close as Philly I know no one!).

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STHayden
I went on an interview at their company a while back and they seemed
legitimate. They are NY based with like 10 employees as of 4 or 5 months ago.

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wheels
I tend to be skeptical about almost any of the pay-to-play things like this.
The Angel scene seems to be very much about personal connections and face
time. I don't think you can replace that with a $250 a month service. It seems
like if you were really bent on dropping money on this sort of thing that
you'd be better digging up one of the consultants that pimps your product for
you to their investor network.

~~~
babyshake
That sounds about right.

In my experience, angels don't usually think of themselves as "angel
investors", and definitely wouldn't join any program like this one.

~~~
innonate
I think this is where you're missing it. The angels are already on this
platform... because it's what they use to manage deal flow.

~~~
evbart
Just wanted to provide more details on what innonate said, I do bizdev for
Angelsoft on the west coast and in the north east (Boston).

For 2 years now, my life has consisted of selling and training angel group
managers and fund managers on how to use Angelsoft to manage their dealflow,
screen deals, and do due diligence.

As for what babyshake said,yes, many investors operate as "loan wolves" and
might not even identify themselves as "angels". To make our vision possible,
the best approach to attract investors in mass was focusing on "angel
networks" or "angel groups", where a group of investors would band together to
spread risk and get better deal flow.

These groups are typically non profit, and don't have much infrastructure, so
they were in dire need of a tool like Angelsoft, and very willing to work
closely with us to come up with something for their needs.

The benefits of using Angelsoft for this groups range from having one central
location for all of their data, to being able to syndicate deals across all
the groups on the platform.

Now that almost all these groups are on Angelsoft and I'm starting to focus
more on VCs, Jason has been working on ways to make this platform even more
useful to entrepreneurs.

If you've got any further questions about Angels, don't hesitate to ask!

~~~
netcan
Do Angels/VCs pay?

~~~
davidsrose
VCs pay (because they are for-profit entities with operating budgets that are
funded by management fees), angel groups don't pay (because they are typically
non-profit, or informal, associations of individuals).

Individual angels don't pay (they get it through their groups), and
entrepreneurs don't pay to submit to individual angel groups or to use the
site's funding management tools.

The only time entrepreneurs pay is if they decide they want to broaden their
funding search by making their plan available to all 450+ groups at the same
time, instead of applying to a targeted few individually.

