Gulf Coast Venture Forum vets then bets on Florida’s brightest prospects        
BY ROGER WILLIAMS       
rwilliams@floridaweekly.com

 WANT TO  MEASURE THE REGION’S ECONOMIC recovery or look in a crystal ball to see the  future?
Just have a quick glance at the Gulf Coast Venture Forum.

 The Naples-based nonprofit business booster and angel fund investor, with a  chapter in Sarasota and growing interest in expanding to Fort Myers, bore and  released the for-profit Tamiami Angel Fund two years ago. That happened roughly
the way a B-52 once bore and released the X-15, the aircraft that holds the  world record for the fastest manned flight (more than 4,500 miles per hour).

 The comparison is apt, although the TAF — the first in Southwest Florida — is only now picking up the pace of investments with both money and intellectual  capital in promising new business ventures from the region or state.

 “Now that we’re entering our third season, I believe the pace of investment  will increase,” says Tim Cartwright, managing director of the Compass Advisory  Group, part of Fifth Avenue Investors where he is a partner, and chairman of
both the Gulf Coast Venture Forum and the Tamiami Angel Fund.

 “We’ve streamlined  certain processes, and we know what we want.”

 The Gulf Coast Venture Forum includes about 100 members between its two current chapters. The TAF, meanwhile, with more than 40 members who kick at  least $50,000 apiece into the fund, requires accredited investors to show at  least $1 million of net worth minus the value of a home, or $200,000 of adjusted  gross income filing singly, or $300,000 filing jointly.

 The importance of that kind of economic muscle and wisdom — many members have headed major corporations, or still do — in powering up a robust future economy  is hard to underestimate, says Ray Leach, a founder and leader of JumpStart, a
Cleveland, Ohio-based nonprofit champion of angel funds. JumpStart has proven  one of the most successful economic engines of its kind in the United States,  according to business pundits.

 Mr. Leach, who owns a home in south Lee County, has helped Jump- Start  establish an advisory relationship with the Gulf Coast Venture Forum.

 “In a lot of communities across the 13 states we get involved in we might  find, for example, a university generating opportunities, but they often don’t  have an angel fund,” he says.

 “Southwest Florida does, and it can be incredibly helpful in creating  earlystage opportunities.”

 He offers a single statistic to make sharply clear the potential importance  of angel fund investors: “In the last decade, 70 percent of new jobs in the  United States were created by companies five years old or younger.”

 Those are the companies Mr. Cartwright and his partners are seeking.

 Now, Mr. Cartwright explains, the Venture Forum and its Tamiami Angel Fund  have “a close collaborative relationship, with a memorandum of  understanding.

 “The Gulf Coast Venture Forum will focus on early-stage deals that are  prerevenue, and TAF will concentrate on early stage deals that are revenue  producing. 

“If a company presents at either the Venture Forum or the TAF and  distinguishes itself, we will refer that company to both, so it can get maximum exposure to investors.”

Nothing like it has happened before in the region.

It marks a high point, a golden opportunity, for innovative new entrepreneurs — but that doesn’t mean the opportunity will come easily.

 On the contrary, if the first two years of TAF investments are any  indication. The process required to gain angelfund backing is rigorous and  selective, a powerfully reductive meritocracy of sorts.

 Only the very best ideas, well planned and executed, are likely to make the  cut.

 “Our total deal flows since inception have numbered 563,” explains Mr.  Cartwright. In other words, 563 entrepreneurs sought investment backing by  contacting the Tamiami Angel Fund.

 “Of those, 27 have been invited to present to our group,” he added.

 “We approved 13 to go to due diligence, and three we invested in.

 “At this juncture I’d like to be invested in six to eight companies. But I  also have to preface that comment by saying, this is the first ever angel fund  of Southwest Florida. This is the first time 41 members could come together,  could cooperate and work together in a democratic investment process. It takes  longer than you anticipate.”

 But it also takes off, just like the X-15. ¦ 

Gulf Coast Venture Forum Season Kick-off meeting 
When: 5:15-8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 1
 Where: Hyatt Regency
Coconut Point Resort
and Spa, Bonita Springs
Cost: $65 at the  door
Info: 687-5824 or www.gcvf.com