Angels we have heard on high – Getting investor networks to look closer to home have sprung up in Wisconsin and Minnesota and have just started to take flight in the Dakotas and Montana.

Angels were looking out for Andrew Field. Not the kind with wings. The kind with cold, hard cash available to jump-start his promising e-commerce printing business Printingforless http://www.printingforless.com in the laid-back resort town of Livingston, Mont.

With the help of TechRanch http://www.techranch.org , a financial consultancy in Bozeman, Field raised $300,000 from “angel” investors and another $350,000 in institutional money a few years ago to fund the business. The angel investors were part of Bridger Private Capital Network http://www.techranch.org/cgi-bin/techranch/earlystageinvestors_bpcn.html?id=73TdTCaV:69.51.77.66 , a fund organized by TechRanch. “It was real important to get early money from angel investors,” he recounted.

The result of the infusion of cash led his company, Printforless.com, to grow from $4 million in revenue in 2002 to $20 million last year. It boasts the second-largest payroll in Park County, with 117 employees. More important to Montana’s economy is that by raising the money locally, he avoided having to move the company to the San Francisco Bay Area, where venture capitalists lauded Field’s concept but promised private equity only if he moved the operation to northern California.

Such angel networks have become an important option as these investors trade cash for a portion of the company in which they invest. Angels become the economic lifeblood of entrepreneurs working to expand a growing business or hoping to get one off the ground, often providing hundreds of thousands of dollars on sometimes risky ventures.

Frank Jossi
Contributing Writer

Full Story: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/05-07/jossi.cfm