Open Deals angel funding application (Is this legitimate?)
open-deals.com
open-deals.com
If you are looking for funding your first stop should be your local Angel group. There is no substitution for that. Our CEO, David S. Rose, Chairman of the New York Angels, would give you the same advice.
After 4 years in the Angel Investment industry, we have consolidated most of the worlds groups onto a single platform called Angelsoft. Go to most any Angel group website and click apply, you will be brought to an application page powered by Angelsoft.
We received hundreds of emails from entrepreneurs asking us how they can apply to all of the groups using our system. In response, we created open-deals.com which allows you to do just that. It is an open directory built into Angelsoft that allows Angels to browse through deals, and refer ones that interest them into their own group for further review. You can see what open-deals.com looks like from an Angel prospective here: http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008/04/17/sneak-peek-what-does-op...
The challenge came in protecting the Angels that use our system from an avalanche of poor quality deals. Angel groups told us that one of the ways they filter out poor quality deals is by charging a submission fee. The theory is that if you are serious enough to pay $250, you are more likely to be a serious entrepreneur.
I hope that clears up some confusion. Feel free to ask questions, I will be monitoring this discussion,
Jason Schwartz Community Manager
Never pay to pitch, basically.
That's just good advice generally!
I'm a startup (BricaBox.com) in the incubator downstairs from AngelSoft. My roommate has been working on their biz dev for the past two years (I found him the job on CL actually) -- so I know first hand that they really did go out and spend two years and get all these big, legit angel groups on their platform (think: Basecamp for Angel networks).
Anywho, now that they have these groups using the platform, they're opening it up for us to be submit deals, solving the problem I'm sure many of you feel: networking outside your local network (I know tons of angels in NYC, but even as close as Philly I know no one!).
In my experience, angels don't usually think of themselves as "angel investors", and definitely wouldn't join any program like this one.
For 2 years now, my life has consisted of selling and training angel group managers and fund managers on how to use Angelsoft to manage their dealflow, screen deals, and do due diligence.
As for what babyshake said,yes, many investors operate as "loan wolves" and might not even identify themselves as "angels". To make our vision possible, the best approach to attract investors in mass was focusing on "angel networks" or "angel groups", where a group of investors would band together to spread risk and get better deal flow.
These groups are typically non profit, and don't have much infrastructure, so they were in dire need of a tool like Angelsoft, and very willing to work closely with us to come up with something for their needs.
The benefits of using Angelsoft for this groups range from having one central location for all of their data, to being able to syndicate deals across all the groups on the platform.
Now that almost all these groups are on Angelsoft and I'm starting to focus more on VCs, Jason has been working on ways to make this platform even more useful to entrepreneurs.
If you've got any further questions about Angels, don't hesitate to ask!
Individual angels don't pay (they get it through their groups), and entrepreneurs don't pay to submit to individual angel groups or to use the site's funding management tools.
The only time entrepreneurs pay is if they decide they want to broaden their funding search by making their plan available to all 450+ groups at the same time, instead of applying to a targeted few individually.