Description

The Sheltowee Angel Network (SANE) writ large is currently composed of three chapters. Knoxville (the Marble City Angels) is the group you will be most directly pitching to in January. I say “most” directly because we record the meetings for the investors who are not able to attend to review (we keep all pitches behind password-protected mechanisms), and through that members of the of the chapters could review the pitch as well. The other two chapters are Louisville, KY (the Derby City Angels) and Nashville (the Music City Angels). These chapters are made up of investors who, on an individual basis, decide which of the portfolio companies they wish to invest in. These investments are usually restricted to seed and series A rounds, although sometimes investors will like a company enough to make individual investments at later rounds.     

The nature of our group is that pitches are made to the group, discussed amongst the group, and a question is posed regarding whether to make a “soft” deal call. The meaning is that each individual investor is asked what he or she would put into the company pending a satisfactory due diligence process. If that aggregate is greater than or equal to $50,000, the Sheltowee Angel Network will invest the time and energy to do a full due diligence process. Assuming no serious issues are discovered in the DD process, a “hard” deal call goes out where people make final commitments and anticipate the issuance of invoices.

Since roughly 2015 the SANE network has invested 65+ rounds in 40+ companies. Invested companies include clean tech, fintech, transportation, electric vehicle battery charging and manufacturing, medical devices and processes, and because of our proximity to Oak Ridge we have a lot of materials science companies. Philosophically we like to put roughly 1/3 of our deals “local” (meaning in my case Knox and the surrounding counties), 1/3 “regional” (basically meaning Appalachia) and the remaining 1/3 elsewhere in the contiguous 48.

The SANE network also has venture funds that investors can help fund, which are managed by the fund directors regarding investments rather than individuals. These funds invest in later rounds of capital raises for companies.   

We also are more than willing to invest intellectual capital in our portfolio companies and help wherever we can.

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