Hey, everybody is fairly sophisticated, has their asset-allocation plan done and municipal bonds on the safe side. That's where angel investors are in the scale of things. Due to their predominantly quiet nature, angels and their activities are notoriously tough to track, but it is widely believed that angels invest roughly twice as much as institutional venture capitalists. So for the smaller transaction, a little vacuum has opened up. At the same time, more and more individuals are coming out of the Qualcomms and Gateways, the IPivots and on down the list with incredible wealth and experience, ready to do something else.
Members decide by a two-thirds vote which companies to back.
Bill Payne, another long-time angel investor and Aztec participant, acknowledges the group's model is far from proven, particularly whether the vote requirement will stymie action. So if you ask us in six months and we still only have one or two investments, then I think we will not have been very successful. Since its founding four months ago, the Aztec Venture Network has reviewed the business plans of 100 start-ups, held informal meetings with 20 of them, and invited three to make their pitch before the general membership. The first to do so, a local Web merchandising venture named CashPile, also became the network's first investment. Phil Trubey, who in 1994 co-founded with his wife the company that became Websense, a wildly successful developer of software that monitors Internet use for companies and schools, became an angel after that experience.