Angelsoft’s Investor Search: Kayak for startups?

March 9, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Updated

It’s no secret that raising angel or venture funding for your startup is getting harder. But Angelsoft.net, which provides deal management software for angel investors and venture capitalists, may be able to make the process a little easier. Its new Investor Search tool won’t make investors more likely to back an entrepreneur’s brilliant idea, but it will help that entrepreneur find the right investor.

Angelsoft compares its new tool to the travel search engine Kayak.com. The New York City company has compiled a database of more than 1,000 investors, and allows you to filter them by maximum distance from your location, the milestones your company has reached, the size of funding you’re looking for, and more. The only thing missing, as TechCrunch’s Leena Rao notes, is an actual box for searching — not strictly necessary, given the other tools Angelsoft provides, but a bit lame since it’s called “Investor Search.” [Update: Actually, Angelsoft points out that there's a "Filter by Group Name" option, which basically does the same thing.]

The coolest thing about the tool is that it makes available some of the data gathered by Angelsoft on the 450 investors who use its software, including average response time, number of applications per month and real investment amounts. As you can probably guess, not all Angelsoft users are sharing that data, but the company says that many are, since the tool helps startups see whether they’re a good fit with a specific investor, and therefore lowers the amount of inappropriate application. Oh, and if entrepreneurs aren’t thoughtful about where they apply, Angelsoft says its system can blacklist them for sending out applications indiscriminately.

Angelsoft itself is backed by Rose Tech Ventures, the investment fund of Angelsoft founder David S. Rose.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • Really like this tool as it addresses a burning issue for entrepreneurs. We at the "Global Security Challenge" have developed a similar tool - only focussed on security start-ups and VCs in that space. The main differentiator is that we compared what a VC says (on his website) with what he actually does (his portfolio) to create an algorithm that matches start-ups with VCs based on factors similar to Angelsoft's.
  • Mark Goldstein
    This is awesome. Anything that reduces the friction is good...I liken it to the SAT test for entrepreneurs...its one standard form and thus less focus on nuances of the structure of the business plan. Kudos!
  • Mismatched deal submissions is a huge inefficiency in the investment market. Giving entrepreneurs an idea of of which firms are best for their deals helps everyone.
  • WA
    Yes Angelsoft is great. That being said, reports said that startup valuation dropped at least 25% during recession (from Angelsoft):

    http://www.wealthalchemist.com/Blog/2009/01/sta...
  • It's really too bad that they weren't able to buy the Angelsoft.com domain, which is for toiletpaper. Insert joke (here).