TCA Confirms Position as #1 Investment Group in Southern California With Five Exits in 2010

IRVINE, Calif., March 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report entitled Shaking the MoneyTree established southern California as the third most active area for equity investments in venture-backed companies in the United States, coming in just slightly behind New England and growing far faster. Tech Coast Angels (TCA), the largest angel investment network in the U.S., was ranked the number one investment group in Southern California by the report.

According to Mike Napoli, recently appointed chairman of TCA, "Tech Coast Angels has been growing steadily through our focus on the entrepreneur and making it easier for new companies to get their ideas heard and considered. Even much larger investors can seldom claim a result as impressive as five profitable exits in a single year."

TCA has discussed individual exits in various announcements, but this is the first time the network is making available details on all five results.

TCA-invested company Mind Body Partnerships provides a lead generation, conversion, retention and loyalty program for the beauty and health and wellness sector. As part of its Series D financing, Mind Body Partnerships provided TCA with a 78.75 percent IRR. Integrien, an IT analytics startup, was acquired by virtualization giant VMware for $100 million in August 2010, and Language Weaver, a pioneer in statistical machine translation, was acquired in July by SDL, the leading provider of global information management solutions. Language Weaver was acquired for a consideration of $42.5 million in cash. Trius Therapeutics, a company developing an antibiotic for serious gram-positive Staph infections, completed an IPO in August directed at raising $50 million through an offering of 10 million shares. The company is listed on the NASDAQ. Finally, the much heralded IPO of Green Dot Corporation, a prepaid debit card company, yielded over 100 times return for early investors in the company.

"As you can imagine," stated Napoli, "both our entrepreneurs and our invested members have been happy and inspired by the excellent results TCA has helped produce."

About Tech Coast Angels

Tech Coast Angels, www.techcoastangels.com, is the largest angel investor network in the United States. Its members provide funding and guidance to more early-stage, high-growth companies in Southern California than any other investment group. TCA members invest in companies in a wide range of industries, including clean technology, consumer products and services, digital and social media, financial services, hardware and software technologies, and life sciences and healthcare. TCA members give companies more than just capital; they also provide counsel, mentoring and access to an extensive network of potential investors, customers, strategic partners and management talent. TCA has more than 250 members in five networks in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Westlake/Santa Barbara and the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties). More information on investment with Tech Coast Angels can be found at www.techcoastangels.com, www.facebook.com/techcoastangels or twitter.com/techcoastangels.

SOURCE Tech Coast Angels