SacAngel Mentoring and Networking Pays Off For Founder in Electro Scan
By aAngel, on April 20th, 2012
On this website we often mention the work we do in the community helping entrepreneurs and startups in ways other than purely putting up hard dollars – e.g., our Angels on Campus and Angel In Action programs, and being advisors in the VentureStart program. Most of that “community” work is done in the background and seldom are the results obvious or transparent – usually we’re just one of many helping hands contributing to any one success.
However, Bob Shallit of the Sacramento Bee wrote about Electro Scan this week and that struck a cord with us about the background story which he did not cover. In April 2011, a local Rescue, CA entrepreneur, Rob Harris, with a company and technology for finding leaks in sewer lines applied to the VentureStart program since (and we quote) they were “not familiar with the processes of seeking capital for establishing a business. We are seeking advice on the most appropriate methods to obtain capital, the best structure to setup to attract such capital and the type of deal that we can expect”.
They were reviewed and screened under the auspices of VentureStart by a set of advisors, including several from the SacAngels. Roger Akers, one of the founders of the SacAngels and General Partner of local VC company, Akers Capital, stepped up and took the company on as a mentoring assignment.
The end result of that assignment was not a SacAngel group investment, rather it was the networking that went on in the local Angel community and the subsequent investment by Chuck Hansen in Electro Scan (Chuck, incidentally is a member of the SacAngels). Rob Harris is now the CTO of the company and excited at the possibilities for strong growth.
It is nice to know that all the work that our members do has impact and, in this case, a direct outcome. And it let us all know that that our volunteer work does pay dividends for our startup community.