The New Atlanta Technology Angels

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a meeting of the Atlanta Technology Angels where they outlined ATA 2.0. The idea behind ATA is to bring angel investors together as a group to get better economies of scale of one’s time (angel investing is a very manual process). ATA is not a fund with committed capital but rather a group of dues-paying members looking to help the Atlanta startup community.

Here are some of the new aspects of ATA 2.0:

• No longer a “one man show” with an executive director but rather a group of several volunteer committees
• Formal process, with feedback and transparency, for entrepreneurs applying to present
• Three separate categories of funding:
  Seed – Under $100k
  Series A – Around $500k (but not limited to that)
  Opportunistic – Whatever the deal takes
• Corporate sponsorships and institutional memberships
• Rotating venues both ITP and OTP
• Partial discount of dues after a certain amount invested (this is to help encourage investing as many people who are members of ATA don’t regularly invest)
• Lowered investment minimum from $25k to $5k to help get more participation in deals

My focus on helping the startup community is still going to be through Shotput Ventures companies and individual EO Accelerator mentoring but I’m excited to learn about ATA 2.0 and I look forward to its success.