Finding financing for a new product or business can be difficult, especially during the recession, but a group of private investors are looking to change that.
Golden Triangle Angelnet wants to encourage local start-up companies by funding them. It was started with seed money from the provincial government. There are currently three dozen investors involved and room for at least another 60.
Since its inception, Angelnet investors have put an average of $50,000 into start up companies such as Top Hat Monocle, the brain child of two University of Waterloo students. They had an idea to make learning in the classroom more engaging by connecting professors with students through technology.
"They use their cell phones, their smart phones, their iPods, their laptops - pretty much what ever they have on them to participate in class," says Mike Silagadze, the company's co-founder.
Angelnet investor Frank Erschen says the initiative will encourage young entrepreneurs like Silagadze and help create jobs.
"Its very invorgating to be working with people who create something out of nothing," he says. "That said, this is still about about an investment, so the financial return is important."
But Angelnet member Robert Douglas says its more than just the money. "It's the value of the coaching and mentoring thats recieved from the actual investors thats of equal, if not greater, value. There's a great fear that perhaps the next RIM is not going to get funded."
Douglas says a quarter of the new companies that ask for financial assistance get the funds needed to start.
