Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club Angel Investor Network
Angel investing has long been an important source of financial support and mentoring for new and growing businesses bridging the gap between individual (friends and family) and institutional venture capital rounds of financing. Over the past several years, Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club and this sector of the private capital market has been formalizing in response to both growing demands and complexity.
Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club - Welcome to the Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club, LLC (the "Club"). The Club is a manager-led Maryland limited liability company angel investing fund. The Club was organized to provide its members an opportunity for active involvement in an early-stage private equity fund.
There has been an explosion of emerging businesses in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region in the life sciences, Internet, telecom, and optical-networking industries, among others. However, there is a shortage of early-stage risk capital in the region, especially in Central Maryland where the Club is located.
The primary focus of the Club is to invest in early-stage companies with significant growth potential that operate in large markets, are run by talented management and are located within a two-hour drive of Columbia, Maryland. The Club co-invests with established venture capital firms, other angel investing clubs and other sources of capital when practical and takes a lead in investments at other times.
Contact:
Columbia MD
MD Angel Networks are as unique as the private investors that make them up. Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club is a group of accredited investors (sophisticated investors) who get together to review companies for potential investment. The investments can be made by accredited individuals belonging to the MD network or by the network itself as a limited partnership.
Some angel networks charge a fee to the entrepreneur for the business plan to be reviewed, or for an in-person presentation to be made to the "angels" group and other angel networks don't.
Learn about as many angel networks / groups in your area as possible.
Like Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club, the number of organized angel groups / networks has grown in response to several factors:
- A widening “capital gap” between individual and institutional venture capital investors that has created a need and an opportunity for pooled investments
- Social camaraderie among investors.
As a result, angel investment screening by Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club, is consistent when compared to other angel investment groups. Specific organizational and legal structures, however, remain varied. Most groups, including Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club (Columbia MD) develop their own organizational structures and processes independently. For entrepreneurs and other MD angel investors, the net results of this change are mostly positive. Although the models of business angel groups continue to evolve, these groups are generally better financed than ad hoc groups of individual / private investors in Columbia MD.
Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club (Angel Investment Network) provides an extended network that benefits both funded companies and private co-investors / other angels by providing greater due diligence, operational support and domain expertise. Business angel groups, such as Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club and other groups (MD) can also provide a key source of qualified deal flow for venture firms - MD - as well as provide intermediate capital for companies with financing requirement levels between individual / private investors and institutional venture capital.
