Solid Turnout for Denver Angel's Capital Summit

Roughly 430 people were on hand at the Colorado Convention Center on Tuesday morning for the Rockies Venture Club’s third annual Angel Capital Summit, an all-day event at which entrepreneurs pitch their business plans in hopes of attracting “angel” investment.

Although the total number of attendees was down from about 500 at last year’s event, the summit attracted a good crowd given the state of the economy, said Maita Lester, executive director of the Rockies Venture Club.

Meanwhile, applications from entrepreneurs seeking to present their businesses rose smartly: 195 startup companies from around the world applied for one of the 40 presenter slots, up from 175 in 2008, Lester said.

Those chosen to present included companies from New York, Virginia, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Utah, California and South Africa, marking the first time an international company has presented at the summit.

Local presenters included Boulder-based mShopper, which offers a mobile platform that lets shoppers find the lowest prices for in-store items using their cellphones; Fort Collins-based St. Renatus LLC, which is marketing a nasal dental anesthetic; and Panda Bicycles, a Fort Collins-based company that builds bamboo bikes.

“We’ve really found our niche with this event,” Lester said. “We [in Colorado] have a very vibrant and active angel community.”

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who provide money to start-up companies, in amounts typically below $1 million. They’re providing much-needed capital at a time when venture capital investment has contracted, Lester said.

From July through September, some $4.8 billion was invested in 637 VC deals nationwide, down from $7.1 billion in 994 deals in the third quarter of 2008 and $7.7 billion in 1,103 deals in the third quarter of 2007, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data provided by Thomson Reuters.

Meanwhile, Colorado companies attracted just under $51 million in the third quarter, roughly a quarter of the $196 million invested in the same quarter a year earlier.

No similar data is available on angel investment, which is typically made privately and not reported publicly.
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