Welcome to the June edition of the New York Angels' Newsletter. This month we saw the release of the Angel Capital Association's Data Insights showing that investing in early stage companies, as an asset class, can outperform all of the major indices. This could be why that despite the challenging fundraising environment, NYA members have been active in backing some exciting companies and excellent founders (see this month's investments).
In this edition, we also profile Larry Kim, Founder & CEO of Customers.ai in our Founder Spotlight and Taher Baderkhan for the NYA Member Spotlight. We also complete a roundup of our community events (including our Office Hours initiative with Goodwin Law) and hear from NYA member Larry Richenstein on fundraising for hardware companies. Read on for more details.
TOTAL MAY INVESTMENTS
New York Angels members invested $902K in May.
MAY INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
MEMBRION CLEAN TECH
In partnership with Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York, New York Angels invested in Membrion. Membrion uses durable ceramic desalination membranes to provide a better and lower cost way to recycle and reuse industrial wastewater. NYA Members were impressed by Membrion's capable management team, its patented intellectual property, and impressive strategic partners. CEO Greg Newbloom also has an unbeatable combination of technical expertise, sales capabilities, and financial discipline. NYA Members Tom Hirschfeld and Elaine Gilde led the deal using an SPV.
CORRALDATA
Six weeks between application and funding was all it took CorralData to obtain funding from 16 New York Angel members. CorralData is an AI-driven, data analytics platform that enables organizations to unlock valuable insights by looking across all of their company data. With over 200 pre-built integrations and AI-powered support, CorralData is committed to helping businesses make data-driven decisions by providing the metrics that matter. Their clients include Sweetgreen, Krystal, IMAX, American Museum of Natural History, and AMC+. CorralData was introduced to the New York Angels by Bill Pertusi, who lead the round with Alyssa Tam. Founders Alex Lirtsman and Ted Dopart bootstrapped CorralData without prior funding.
FOUNDER SPOTLIGHT
Larry Kim, founder and CEO of Customers.ai, founded Customers.ai to help businesses extract the full value of their marketing and sales efforts using automated lead qualification and sales outreach automation on the most popular mobile chat applications, used by billions of people every day. Larry previously founded WordStream, which was the world’s largest pay-per-click software company. Larry shares why it’s important to always be fundraising, why companies should have multiple fundraising partners of different sizes, and how he’s leveraged NYA to help drive traction for Customers.ai.
COMPANY NEWS
ZYLÖ
Zylö Therapeutics Inc has been awarded a two-year $294,000 National Institutes of Health grant to advance its Cutaneous Lupus Program. The grant will help demonstrate efficacy of Zylö’s novel Z-pod delivery system in a new mouse model of cutaneous lupus developed at Yale University and conduct preliminary stability studies to prepare for an eventual investigational new drug application to the FDA. Read About Grant
COMPANY NEWS
KASISTO
Kasisto, creators of KAI, the leading digital experience platform for the financial services industry, launched KAI-GPT and KAI Answers. KAI-GPT empowers banks with the incredible potential of generative AI to provide human-like, financially literate interactions at speed and scale. Kasisto has also launched KAI Answers to improve customer care by providing the right answers quickly, via a contextual, human-like conversational experience. Read Press Release
COMPANY NEWS
KINNOS
Kinnos raised an additional $15m to meet growing healthcare industry demands for cleaning and infection prevention needs. Kinnos' patented portfolio of products improves cleaning and safety by visibly coloring the disinfectants hospitals currently use. Its Highlight product was found to measurably improve disinfection quality by as much as 70%. Read Announcement
COMPANY NEWS
BUOY
Buoy closed a $2.5M seed round with participation from NBA player Chris Paul. Buoy transforms any drink into a hydrating, functional beverage in just one squeeze. Their Hydration Drops offer daily electrolytes, ionic trace minerals and functional ingredients that dissolve instantly and evenly in every beverage and are flavorless in everything but water. Read Article
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Taher Baderkhan joined New York Angels in 2020, and he has had a profound impact already as a relatively new member. His industry experience in 3D media, VR technology, cloud architecture, data analytics and user experience design, adds critical expertise to the NYA. Taher is also the Co-founder & CTO at YouVisit, an immersive media company in the education Martech space. Taher shares how NYA has become the next fulfilling and exciting step in his career, what he's learned from other NYA members, and why founders need to be focused in their fundraising.
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
PARTNERSHIP FOR NYC Maria Gotsch
In our NYA May Monthly Forum, Maria Gotsch, CEO at Partnership Fund for NYC, discussed their continued commitment and funding opportunities for NYC early-stage entrepreneurs across FinTech, Transportation, Life Sciences industries and more. Partnership Fund for NYC helped develop NYC as one of the top FinTech hubs in the world. Apply for Partnership for NYC Funding
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
SPORTS TECHNOLOGY AWARDS 2023 Awards, NYC May 18th
New York Angels members attended the annual Sports Technology Awards - the world’s leading celebration of tech-led innovation in sport. The winning companies demonstrate the future of the rapidly evolving sports tech industry. This was the first year the awards were hosted in North America. View 2023 Winners
MEMBER PERSPECTIVES
RAISING FUNDING IN HARDWARE
Lawrence Richenstein
Fundraising is challenging, but it can be one of the key factors in a startup's success. Lawrence Richenstein, New York Angels long-time member and CEO of WePower Technologies, discusses raising funding in hardware, while many of his tips are relevant across all industries. Listen to his recent podscast that discusses essential information on angel investing, including the development stages necessary for pitching to a professional angel investor and how to deliver an effective pitch once granted an opportunity.
MEMBER ENGAGEMENT NYA OFFICE HOURS May 2023
NYA hosted its first Office Hours at Goodwin Law. 20 promising early-stage companies met with angels knowledgeable about their industry and received free legal advising from Goodwin attorneys. The event was a big success for all. Founders came away with a clearer sense of where they should focus their time and effort, and NYA met companies that may seek future fundraising.
If you would like to participate in future Office Hours, complete our Office Hours Interest Form, and we'll respond if it's a fit. Sign Up for NYA Office Hours
MEMBER ENGAGEMENT TERM SHEET TANGO
The Member Engagement team hosted a session to increase member familiarity with the NYA Model term sheet. Michael Costa created a simulated negotiation exercise using the NYA model term sheet as a basis for discussion. In this role-playing exercise members were divided between founders and NY deal leads. It gave everyone a chance to really work through the NYA term sheet. Five brave teams “tangoed” through the simulation and many other members attended the wrap-up session where the results were discussed. Materials are available for New York Angels members via Gust.
ANGEL CAPITAL ASSOCIATION ANGEL RETURNS BEAT ALL ASSET CLASSES BUT POSE GREATER RISK
Angel Capital Association released its latest Data Insights. Highlights included:
Angel Investing as an asset class offers potential returns far greater than any other asset class, given the possibility of achieving extraordinary multiples (exceeding 100x) on a few companies.
Diversification is critical given the rare nature of those “grand slam home runs”, and a smart angel investor should seek a robust number of early-stage investments in his/her early-stage portfolio.
While other asset classes offer lower returns, the dispersion around those returns is far lower – so it is wise to keep early-stage as only a small portion on one’s investable assets. 10-20% is often cited as a good rule of thumb.
Investment Forum (Hybrid):
• June 12th (9:30 AM - 1:30 PM)
July Screening (Virtual):
• July 5th (9:00 AM - 1:00 PM)
FOUNDER DEADLINES
July 5th Screening Application:
• Due June 14th
*New York Angels, Inc. ("NYA") is a not-for-profit corporation that is funded by membership dues for individuals and/or entities that NYA has designated as members as well as from certain sponsors. Its purposes include providing administrative support to its members. NYA does not invest in companies. Investments, if made, are made by individual members of NYA.
