Entrepreneurs investment chapter in planning stages
BILL O’DRISCOLL
The drive is on to create a Reno Angels early stage investment group to help local entrepreneurs develop and keep their businesses in Northern Nevada.
“There’s a real demand for risk capital in Northern Nevada companies that look instinctively to the Silicon Valley. We need to bring all that activity back to Nevada,” Dave Archer, CEO of Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, said Friday.
Archer led an organizational meeting Thursday night on creating the Reno Angels, patterned after 278 such groups across the country, including the Incline Village-based Sierra Angels and the Vegas Valley Angels in Southern Nevada.
“Clearly, we’re underrepresented. There is a market here,” Archer said of Northern Nevada.
Under federal Security and Exchange Commission rules, a participant in an angel investment group must have a net worth exceeding $1 million, income exceeding $200,000, or $300,000 with a spouse, for two years, or a trust with assets exceeding $5 million.
The stakes involve high risk but high rewards, Archer said, as angel investors are active in an early stage business, offering coaching and guidance and typically own up to 40 percent equity in return for their total investment of $150,000 to $1.5 million.
For more information online, www.renoangels.org
