Delta Angel Group capital matchmaker

Gary Paquin knows there are entrepreneurs with good ideas in North Idaho.

By RICK THOMAS
Staff writer

He’s also certain there are local investors who can help them get started. So he’s playing matchmaker through the Delta Angel Group, connecting capital to concepts.

"We’re kind of like a dating service," said Paquin.

A dating service for the particular, that is. Potential investors must have annual incomes of $200,000 or more or a net worth of at least $1 million to qualify.

It cuts both ways, however. Only one concept in 10 is taken to investors for consideration.

On the second Wednesday of each month the group meets for lunch in a different restaurant in the North Idaho/Spokane area. Up to 200 attend to hear new ideas.

"We talk about mining the resources," said Paquin. "The resources of the future are innovation, capital, people and a technology base. We have them all, but they’re all disconnected."

The Delta Angel Group is a nonprofit organization that formed about a year ago with volunteer board members from Idaho and Washington.

Paquin estimates there are up to 3,000 potential accredited investors who are unaware of the opportunities available in their own back yard — or who believe those opportunities come at too high a risk — and hopes to hire a full-time paid director to recruit investors.

Jim Fleming is chief executive officer of GenPrime, a bio-tech company that needed "bridge funding" to market Prime Alert, a threat verification system for emergency responders to test toxicity of powdered contaminants.

He found that capital through the Delta Angel Group.

"They have a very strong group," said Fleming. "They have some fairly big players."

The funding he found there was vital to the company, and has helped significantly in improving sales.

"I think the region clearly needs local investment in business," said Fleming. "The Delta Angel Group is doing their best to make that happen."

There are two ways to grow jobs, said Paquin — create them from the community or by recruiting from outside the area, a more difficult, more expensive approach. He prefers the former.

"We have the pieces we need," he said. "We just need to put them all together."

Paquin is not out to create more low- to average-paying jobs, though.

The self-described "serial entrepreneur" and owner of Med Market, an international facilitator of medical product movement, and CEO of Smart Plugs, a high-tech replacement for conventional spark plugs, knows the value of well-paying jobs.

"My personal mission and challenge is to create a middle class," he said. "We can do it from within."

The next Microsoft is out there, he believes, and the Inland Northwest is a prime incubator for it.

"We’ll be an economic powerhouse," he said.

Information: http://www.deltaangelgroup.org.

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