The Band of Angels AeroAstro Special Interest Group (SiG) is interested in startup teams in new space, new aeronautics and related services, technologies, and components. Thomas Dittler, Co-chair of the SiG participated in Startup Weekend Space in Paris as a judge on November 27th, 2016 and represented the Band of Angels network and the AeroAstro SIG. Other judges included the Chief Strategist of ESA (European Space Agency), the CTO of Airbus Safran Launcher (Maker of the Ariane Rocket) and other great personalities from the European Space Industry.
Inaugural "Second Look" Lunch
The inaugural September 22, 2016 “Second Look” luncheon, held the day after the September Deal Dinner, was a success. Three current Band Portfolio companies (Materna, Twine, and Practice Fusion) presented their follow-on funding opportunities and all three received indications of interest. Twine has already closed their financing with new investment from the Band. In addition, the three new presenting companies from the previous day’s Deal Dinner came and answered questions, from a nice mix of members who had attended the dinner and those that had missed it. Feedback was uniformly positive that this is a great way to look at follow-on opportunities and dig deeper into new deals.
8th Annual Portfolio Day
We held our 8th Annual Portfolio Day yesterday, September 15th, and heard from 16 Band portfolio companies. A big thank you to our member Mario Rosati for hosting us at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto. This year’s lineup included:
Aperia Technologies, Bell Biosystems, Bioxiness, Cargo Chief, Crop One Holdings (formerly AquaHarvest), DecisionNext, GATE, Materna, Navera (formerly Trustnode), NG1 Technologies, NGX Bio (formerly Uberseq), Peloton Technology, Practice Fusion, Savvy, TinyKicks, and TranscribeMe!
For our educational session Andy Scott from RPX Corporation (NASDAQ: RPXC) gave a great overview followed by lively Q&A on how to “Protect Your Portfolio Investment from Patent Litigation” and Suresh Pai, CEO of CogENT Therapeutics shared the highlights of the Entellus Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENTL) acquisition of Band company CogENT (January 2014 Dinner).
iBeat raises $1.5 million to build a heart monitor that people will actually want to wear
A San Francisco startup called iBeat has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to make a smartwatch that constantly monitors a wearer’s heart and, in the event of cardiac arrest, checks in on them, and notifies loved ones and emergency responders. Maveron, Subtraction Capital and Correlation Ventures led iBeat’s seed round. Other investors included Ali and Hadi Partovi, NFL offensive tackle Russell Okung, KKR founding partner Henry Kravis and Band of Angels. Read the full article on TechCruch.
Announcing Portfolio Day
Our 8th Annual Portfolio Day will be on Thursday, September 15th from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (650 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto). Please let Sonja know which of our more than 200 portfolio companies you would like to hear from and we will invite them!