First, let’s figure out the money issue. There are many people who want to build your startup but don’t have enough resources for it (what a surprise!). For those like them, there are many options where you can get money for the projects. Opportunities to stop ‘thinking’ about what you want to do and how many cool things will bring you and start ‘doing’ and make this real.
Where to get money?
You can be your own investor and take money from your savings. Or you can get a credit card. Risks are obvious — in case of failure, you can lose all your money. For a beginner in the startup world, it’s not a good idea.
Or you can ask for money from your friends or family. But not all of us had a rich aunt in Australia or something and not many people are ready to cooperate with their relatives.
Then what?
In our article, we want to share with you the list of Dallas angel investors — people who live and love to invest in other people’s startups. Not for all of the angels, but some forward-looking ones. But first, let’s figure out who angel investors are.
Who are the Dallas angel investors?
People in Dallas who invest in startups in early seed stages are called Dallas Angel Investors. For startuppers who have an idea and ambitions to make their own product, these people are truly angels because they can help make their dreams come true. As a rule, angels are wealthy people who provide support to young startups in exchange for a part of the income from implementing their ideas.
1. Blossom Street Ventures
These guys describe themselves as not unicorn hunters but only pragmatic and economic approaches. They are oriented on startups with $2 million to $30 million of run-rate revenue and year-over-year growth from 20% to 50%+ depending on revenue. Their portfolio includes software, marketplaces, and e-commerce.
Some examples of Dallas angel funding:
-
- Contactually — a CRM system for real estate professionals
- BrandYourself — a service to protect their privacy on the Internet
- SpotHero — a booking parking service
2. Dallas Angel Network
This group of Dallas Angel investors is interested in startups in the seed stage. The group meets quarterly and after the group finds three to five ‘interesting entrepreneurs’. Investors can join the network for free, and entrepreneurs do not pay any fees to participate or submit an offer.
If your startup is a business product, consumer service, or even a game you can prepare your PDF pitch for them. Tell about your company and why it can be successful, your business plan, your team, and your main milestones.
Financials Dallas Angel Network prefers:
Capital Seeking
-
- $100,000 – $1,000,000
Valuation
-
- $1,000,000 – $4,000,000
In addition to Dallas, the group also includes angel investors from Houston and Austin.
3. Cowtown Angels
Cowtown Angels is a program of TechFW — a non-profit organization created to foster the development of the local business community. The advantage is that they can interact with the entrepreneur as investors as well as mentors and help speed up the growth of the startup. They can invest in a wide range of industries.
To get an investment from these angels there is full instruction on their site, but we will tell you about it in a nutshell:
-
- entrepreneur sends a request in the form on the site
- the committee selects the most worthwhile ones
- startups talk about their products on the forum
- due diligence do research and estimation
- angel investors are preparing a deal
- every angel investor makes a financing decision
4. Sentiero
A group of angel investors that support AI-enabled Saas startups and provide capital for implementation.
These angels are integrating AI technology in 4 ways:
-
- automation of digital and physical tasks
- explication of patterns in large amounts of data
- interaction with customers & employees
- collecting data that enables machine learning
AI can be implemented in many areas. For example — marketing, business, retail or healthcare. If your startup belongs to one of these spheres and at least one partner has a founder, or investor experience — you can fill out the form on their site.
5. Mark Cuban Companies
Did you hear about Shark Tank? A reality TV show where the entrepreneurs pitch their presentation to a group of 5 angel investors or ‘sharks’ to get an investment in their company or not. One of the sharks is Mark Cuban — the number one angel investor in Dallas according to Common Desk and a Dallas Mavericks owner.
Now, he is an active seed angel investor in technology startups. Perhaps his most famous investment was Broadcast.com — a streaming internet radio that was then bought by Yahoo for $5.7 billion. Mark invests in interesting companies run by highly motivated people to make more profit, not to find an exit.
6. SVP Dallas
The key point of SVP angel investors is to raise community leaders committed to improving our lives and social interactions. SVP angels nurture effective philanthropists, reinforce nonprofits, and invest in innovative solutions.
Since its inception, Dallas SVP angels have jointly invested more than $3 million in over 25 local nonprofit organizations, and have attracted over 500 partners to volunteer with a variety of nonprofit organizations.
7. Tech Wildcatters
Tech Wildcatters angels value a person’s ambition and faith in their project. Group mentor and angel investor Ryan Scripps excelled in investment analysis, planning, and business development. His main industry experience is in healthcare, but he also has experience in heavy equipment, architecture, engineering, and retail.
How does the investment program work in Tech Wildcatters Angel?
-
- Discovery — identifying the problem and how to solve it
- Build — Market Research with MVP
- Launch — a beta version to launch a sales funnel
- Grow — preparation for external angel investments
- Scale — project scaling and access to funding
8. North Texas Angel Network
The NTAN supports startups by providing capital and knowledge to those who have made strong arguments to invest in their projects. These angel investors in Dallas claim that their members have business-building experience in many fields. This expertise is essential for consulting entrepreneurs.
There is a brief instruction in 3 steps on how to work with these investors:
- Fill out an application on their site.
- Wait for them to check every candidate.
- Get an answer from angels whether they are ready to invest in your startup, or not.
It’s important that they don’t charge fees from applicants.
9. Interlock partners
A tight-knit group of angel investors in Dallas that support cybersecurity startups, SaaS companies, and educational enterprises. It’s an incomplete list of industries, of course. Broadly speaking, this venture capital firm is interested in transformative teams that have already met some goals in their field but need money and expert help to go further.
These investors’ great advantage is that they not only provide capital but consult startups on growth strategy issues. The firm helps to strengthen leadership teams.
There are examples of Interlock partners’ funding:
-
- Rechat — a full-service platform for real estate agents and brokers
- OZY — a digital media company
- BEGiN — an educational platform for children
10. Perot Jain
This venture capital firm was founded in 2014. These angel investors in Dallas make seed and early-stage investments in transformative startups to create innovative products with market leaders. It’s not a big team consisting of four professionals. They prefer to work with bold and diligent startups that build apps or platforms in the following sectors: healthcare, B2B areas, and business services. These angels are ready to invest up to $500,000 in seed capital.
Let’s take an example of Perot Jain’s funding: Diagnostic Robotics. It’s an AI medical platform that triages patients in the emergency department. This system can reduce doctors’ burden and the cost of medical services.
11. Dallas Venture Capital
Dallas Venture Capital (DVC) is an early-stage fund investing in innovative technologies like IoT. Besides, these angels consult companies on issues relating to business strategy and development. They work not only in the USA but also in India. Their goal is to connect these two global markets.
DVC has the following approach: it plans to achieve an approximate tenfold growth in revenues of its funding enterprises in two years. They do that by helping startups in many areas. For instance, mentoring leaders, improving strategy and building new partnerships.
12. Green Park and Golf Ventures
These angel investors in Dallas are ready to make investments in promising startups in the medical field. Their initial funding ranges from $100,000 to $1,000,000. These angels’ approach to the investment depends on the startup’s needs and status.
This team of investors pays attention to the following points:
-
- Fresh and innovative ideas that can drastically alter local markets
- Vigorous leadership teams of two or more
- Great market opportunities
- Understanding between the executives and the workers
MVP approach
In Purrweb we specialize in making MVP product — the first version of the product to show users the main functionality of the product and attract angel investment. It is a perfect promoting channel for your idea to pitch it to Dallas angel investors because for its development you need less money and time than making a full-fledged product. As an experienced team, our task is to help young startups launch an MVP in order to validate the idea, get angel investments, and quickly enter the market.
If you have an idea and you think the coolest angel investors can appreciate it — drop us a line!
[wpim]