TiE Angels Celebrates One Year, Eight Investments, and an Exciting Year Ahead

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- TiE Silicon Valley announced today that its TiE Angels program has successfully completed its first year, surpassing expectations by funding eight highly promising companies.

TiE Angels is an angel investment group formed by Charter Members of TiE Silicon Valley with a mission to support top-tier emerging companies with early stage investment and support. Since its first monthly meeting in August 2010, TiE Angels has already made investments in eight companies, with investments in the range of $200,000 -- $650,000 per company.

"Before launching the group, we talked to a large number of angel groups in the Valley and incorporated their best practices in the organization of TiE Angels and how it manages relationships with its members and entrepreneurs," said Venktesh Shukla, Chair of TiE Angels and a board member of TiE Silicon Valley, "With 80 members and eight companies funded in the first year, TiE Angels has been a roaring success by any benchmark. The success of TiE Angels is a testament to the quality of the ecosystem built by TiE that nurtures next generation of entrepreneurs," Shukla added.

TiE Angels receives about twenty business plans a month from outstanding entrepreneurs in Cloud, Social, Mobile, Energy and Life Sciences market segments. Most of the deals come through referrals from TiE Charter Members, who are successful entrepreneurs, members of venture capital community and senior corporate executives. A large number of TiE Angels have played key roles as founders and "C" level executives, and now enjoy getting involved with the next generation of entrepreneurs.

"A great investor listens, learns and works as a partner to build a successful business. I was very impressed with the TiE Angels, right from the intro and through the entire investment process," said Raj Pai, CEO of Claritics, a TiE Angels portfolio company, "Our entire funding round took less than six weeks with an experienced team leading the due diligence. The TiE Angels team continues to be an active, involved partner as we grow and scale our business."

Entrepreneurs with early stage companies who are looking for funding are encouraged to apply to present to TiE Angels. Once a month, all members of TiE Angels are invited to rate all the companies. The six highest rated companies are invited to present to the screening committee, consisting of Deepak Bhagat, Naveen Bisht, Satish Gupta, Vish Mishra, Raj Parekh, Ashok Ramaswamy, Jay Sethuram, Prashant Shah and Venktesh Shukla. Three companies are then invited to present to the full TiE Angels group. If there is sufficient investor interest in a company, two angels who tend to be domain experts are appointed to lead diligence. If the diligence leads to a recommendation for investment, individual investors decide for themselves if they want to participate in the deal.  

Vyycore, another company that has received funding from TiE Angels, has been very pleased with the support and commitment level TiE Angels offers. "Investment by TiE Angels  has been the best thing to happen to Vyycore. Some members of TiE Angels have deep expertise in our space and they quickly understood the huge market potential of our technology," said Doron Koren, President, Vyycore Corporation. He continued, "They have high level contacts in our target customer companies and they are always willing to make a connection for us. I am delighted that TiE Angels is on my side"

"Getting funding from TiE Angels is like a seal of approval as our process is as rigorous, if not more, than any of the venture capitalists. Getting funding from TiE Angels has the added benefit of bringing network of TiE Charter Members and Silicon Valley VC sponsors to the entrepreneur and making it easier to raise the institutional round. We expect all our investees to do well and raise the investment pace over the next year, " said Vish Mishra, President of TiE Silicon Valley.

An investor can become a member of TiE Angels by completing the online membership form and accepting the TiE Angels Code of Conduct. TiE Angels members who plan to invest in any company sourced through TiE Angels must meet accredited investor requirements as defined in relevant SEC regulations.

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About TiE

TiE is a global, not-for-profit, non-political, and non-religious organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs across its international network. Sponsored by top Venture Capital Firms and Fortune 500 corporations, TiE's network has grown across 56 chapters in 13 countries comprising of 1,800 experienced entrepreneurs and business executives as charter members, 12,000 aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals as members.

Contact: Amanda Day, [email protected], 408-567-0700      

SOURCE TiE Silicon Valley