Re: Start Up the Risk-Takers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Atkinson <rca53 () columbia edu>
Date: February 24, 2009 12:24:33 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  Start Up the Risk-Takers

Titus,

You might consider "angel investor" funds.  Google "angel investing" and
maybe your city or state and you will see that there are many "angel"
investor groups.

Some angel groups simply screen business plans and provide a forum for
entrepreneurs with the best plans to pitch to angels while others  
actually
establish a collective fund and make portfolio investments. You probably
have to be an "accredited investor" to participate in an angel  
organizations
since you are likely to lose all of the investment in many instances,  
with
those total losses, hopefully, offset by the occasional "home run" that
returns 10, 20 or more times the investment. I don't know if the funds  
would
take $5,000....it may be too small.

Bob

Robert C. Atkinson
Director of Policy Research
Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)
http://www.citi.columbia.edu

office: 212-854-7576
mobile: 908-447-4201

E-mail: rca53 () columbia edu
alt: bob () robertcatkinson com






On 2/24/09 12:01 PM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "C. Titus Brown" <ctb () msu edu>
> Date: February 24, 2009 10:20:50 AM EST
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Start Up the Risk-Takers
> Reply-To: titus () idyll org
>
> (for IP if you wish)
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 03:49:38PM -0500, David Farber wrote:
> -> Begin forwarded message:
> ->
> -> February 22, 2009
> -> Op-Ed Columnist
> -> Start Up the Risk-Takers
> -> By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
> ->
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22friedman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
> &pagewanted=all
>
> [ ... ]
>
> -> Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are  
> short
> -> of cash today because their partners ? university endowments and
> -> pension funds ? are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S.
> -> Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best  
> venture
> -> capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all  
> lose.
> -> If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel,  
> taxpayers
> -> will give you 20 percent of the investors? upside and keep 80  
> percent
> -> for themselves.
>
> This is an interesting kind of idea, and reminds me of a thought I'd  
> had
> back when this financial crisis started to cascade (sometime between  
> May
> and August of last year) -- is there a VC fund for people without big
> pots of money?  I'm thinking of something like Kiva, but for VC.  If I
> could contribute (say) $5000 to such a fund, along with 2000 other
> people, that could bankroll a few startups; it might be a "fun" way to
> participate in VC funding.
>
> Does anything like this exist?
>
> cheers,
> --titus





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