Angel Street Capital, a consulting and investment capital firm, was founded in August by Stephan C. Sloan, director, Joseph V. Gallagher, managing director, and Robert J. Maccini, managing director.
The firm, which says it is interested in digital media-related ventures, has already started making waves with its local investment picks: Betaspring, DijiPop and MoFuse.
PBN: Angel Street Capital is looking to invest in early startups related to digital media. What company characteristics would catch your eye?
MACCINI: There are several, including an experienced management team, recurring revenue model, an industry where there are strong underlying drivers. One of the more important characteristics is where we feel we can bring our background and business relationships to bear on the successful operations and strategic decisions that are so important in an early-stage venture.
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PBN: How do you view the local technology community? Does Angel Street prefer local investment versus out-of-state ones?
MACCINI: Although I have been based in Rhode Island for 25 years, much of our previous business dealings have been national in scope. We are striving to become more involved locally as it is easier to assess new investment opportunities by meeting management teams more frequently. [We also] assist those companies we invest in through the early stages of development. Much of our involvement centers on the technology community, which is small but growing.
PBN: Angel Street, since its foundation in August, has invested in Betaspring, DiJiPOP and MoFuse. What made Angel Street bet on these three local groups?
MACCINI: Our Betaspring investment was aimed at getting more involved in the local Rhode Island startup area. Technically we own a tiny piece of all of the entities that went through the Betaspring program this summer but the primary motivator was to get involved with entrepreneurs, other angel investors and the team at Betaspring, which has done a great job in starting a more organized incubator program locally.
DijiPop has assembled a great management team and was involved in building an advertising platform, which my partners and I have been intimately involved in.
MoFuse provides a “do-it-yourself” platform to create mobile websites. The mobile industry is growing rapidly. Angel Street Capital has another investment in a mobile company that develops applications so now we have both paths covered – Web or app.
PBN: What should a startup have under its belt before looking for investors? You founded your own startup, Ando Media, in 2004. If you had one piece of advice to share from that experience, and now as an investor, what would it be?
MACCINI: The quality level of some of the investor presentations we have received has surprised us. The key is to have fully developed the revenue model and have factual data for the underlying assumptions. How competition impacts these assumptions is paramount.
I’d like to think that we were successful at Ando due to our superb management abilities. However, in hindsight I now recognize it was due to market timing (we were there just as the industry was taking off). We had almost no competition and had the industry contacts to sell in the solution. A rising tide lifts all boats, so concentrate on those industries that are growing.
PBN: What digital media trends are going to be the major investment attractors for 2011?
MACCINI: In no order of priority they would be; mobile – (location-based services, mobile payment, analytics, advertising, streaming audio to car), cloud computing services and platforms, video streaming, gaming, data analytics, social media marketing.
