“Angel investing - one of the leading sources of capital for the innovation economy - is undergoing rapid transformation and growth, with new social media entrants, legislative changes, and the explosion of the start-up environment.” - Angel Capital Association Summit 2013

At Startup Grind 2013 conference in Silicon Valley I hosted the “No Harps or Hallows in Angel Funding” section designed to explore the changing early stage funding context.  Coming up in April, ACA Chairman David Verrill and Board Member Jean Peters have invited me to join a related panel: Crowdfunding: Wisdom of Crowds or Greatest Fool Theory? at the Angel Capital Association’s 2013 Summit: Navigating Change for Angel Success.

Click through for a collection of insight from these great exchanges with:

Jessica Scorpio, co-Founder, Getaround
Jeremy Liew, Partner at LightSpeed Ventures
Jeff Clavier, Partner at SoftTech VC, and
David Verrill, Chairman of ACA, Founder/Managing Director at Hub Investment Group, LLC

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Do you know a startup that is ready to meet one on one with Howard Morgan, Nikhil Kalghatgi, Shai Goldman or TK Kuegler?

Or how about a one on one meeting with Erick Schonfeld as he searches for the best mobile startups to showcase at DEMO Mobile?

Over Thanksgiving weekend, these world class investors will select startups to meet with for 10 minute, one on one meetings. How can your startup be selected for one of these opportunities? Click here to learn how.

Cdling (pronounced “seedling”) is a platform that builds trust between investors, startups and experts across global startup communities. Want to learn more? Thank you to Howard, Nikhil, Shai, Erick and TK for working with us across the New York startup community to create these opportunities for some promising Founders.

Thank you party! 

On the evening of November 27, Cdling, in collaboration with Ultra Light Startups NYC, Picatic and Goodwin Procter LLP is hosting a private thank you party at The Alley NYC! Here are the details! http://www.picatic.com/cdlingofficehrsnyc

Give us an opinion of the hottest startup in NYC now!

Click to browse NYC Startups

First we want to thank the top players from across the startup ecosystem who confidentially referred all of the startups who have been considered for this opportunity.

As you can imagine, the most important elements of our report to Nikhil evolved out of our Cdling Scores for players, although there are also some startups who have used Cdling to get themselves through the door.

We would have released this earlier, but we were working with a few startups to confirm that they could attend.  So while it may not be a surprise to those who have been selected for these meetings, I apologize to anyone who was working towards this opportunity and is only getting this news released now.

We are working hard to try to create meaningful opportunities for both the startups and the investors that we serve. If you were not selected, remember that this can be a reflection of your stage or Nikhil’s interests and not a judgement on what you are doing.

Nikhil’s final selections for OFFICE HOURs tomorrow at Gowlings and the schedule:

4 pm - Shelflife

ShelfLife is the future of collecting with next-generation e-commerce and collection management tools. Whether you collect action figures, H&M designer sales, skateboards, Japanese kaiju, video games, or books, ShelfLife will provide everything you need to make your collecting experience faster, cheaper and more fun.

4:10 pm - Uken Games

Uken is one of the truly cross platform gaming companies around. We build fun social and mobile games that make people stare, smile, jump, and feel awesome inside.

4:20 pm - UNATA

Unata supplies technology that allows retailers to connect their loyalty program to digital platforms such as mobile & web, automatically personalizing content for every user so as to enhance the at-home and in-store shopping experience and thereby increase customer loyalty. The platform includes a real-time analytics & marketing platform that delivers all the benefits of online marketing to bricks & mortar operations, allowing retailers to monetize new data and become more efficient marketers.

Break

4:40 - BUNCH

Bunch is a mobile platform to share and discuss your passions with like-minded people. The Bunch iPhone app is live in private beta and has had 1.1 million pre-signups via a Facebook marketing app. Bunch will test launch Sept 2012 in Canada, with a US launch to follow.

4:50 - Shiny Ads

Allows (small) advertisers to build their ad banner, set up their campaign and pay for it all in an automated fashion without the need of a direct sales force. The advertising is automatically placed in the web publisher’s ad server and all payment and optionally refunds are handled automatically.

Startups - you can pitch, ask for advice or an introduction or just forge that relationship for future consideration.

Thanks to Nikhil and everyone who participated in this Cdling Alpha experiment. We have learned a ton!

UPDATE: Shelflife is the winner!

Our Startup Grind Toronto Fireside Chat with Nikhil Kalghatgi is sold out.

But one local Founder can still earn one VIP seat, front and centre.

It is very simple. The startup that uses the Cdling platform to gather the most opinions about their potential from different individuals by noon, Thursday October 25th gets a guaranteed seat.

You know how it is done.

Here are the FAQs on Cdling to share.

Feel free to shoot me any questions at michael at cdling dot com.

You see the Cadee logo right above, in the bottom left corner? That is a Toronto based startup!  High Score House - that’s Canadian. Social Stork is another Toronto startup that is now #500Strong.

We are pleased to announce that Paul Singh, Partner at 500Startups is coming to Toronto on September 10th.  Unlike our lead to Howard Morgan, this time the team at MaRS Common and Jolt were ahead on the path to organizing the visit with Paul and we are grateful that they have worked with us to enable:

1. A “Fire-side chat” pizza lunch with Startup Grind Toronto. Get your tickets here! Paul will be sitting down with us to explain why 500Startups is probably the most active high velocity early stage investor on the planet; and to listen to and advise on your startup’s challenges.

2. OFFICE HOURS: Earlier in the morning on September 10th, Paul has agreed to meet one-on-one with a few selected startups that are ready for an angel investment.  If you know of an Ontario based startup that might be a fit for 500Startups, please introduce them.  We will be presenting a report to Paul on September 7th, hopefully he will make his final selections quickly, we can announce and make sure that the selected Founders are lined up for him at MaRS Commons on Monday morning.  More details on how to get your startup on our report can be found here.  The format will be similar to the speed meetings that we set up for Howard Morgan.  Each Founder will have 10 mins.  They can pitch, pose a problem and get advice or use the time to somehow form a bond with Paul for future consideration, but they only have 10 mins!

Take a few minutes to click through this “MONEYBALL + STARTUPS” presentation about the changing trends in angel and venture investing.  That moneyball label has been applied to Cdling.  These slides are a prerequist to Cdling’s pitch deck!

Each year, 15 deals account for 97% of all venture capital profits. 

Andreessen Horowitz burst on to the venture capital landscape in 2009 with that simple thesis. Now they are ranked as the number one investor of choice by entrepreneurs. Go figure why.

At the same time this new firm has raised $2.7-billion while the number of active fund managers has dropped by half and only a very few fund managers (15 to 25 elite firms) are attracting 80% of new funds raised.

“The speed with which the venture firm — started by Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Netscape, and Ben Horowitz, a former executive there — has rocketed to the top ranks has served as a case study in successful self-promotion.” New York Times, July 22, 2012 

“If you were advising young entrepreneurs on their startups, you’d tell them to look for ways to ‘go direct’ to their customer base. In a sense, that’s exactly what blogging and social media allow today’s venture capitalist to do.” Mark Suster, General Partner, GRP, A Look at Venture Capitalists on the Web, OpenView Partners Report

Reputation matters. 

Can (or should?) a local angel or VC who has a laser focus on the few startups that are a good fit for their expertise, try to top the list like Fred Wilson?

Granted, not everyone can attract 100,000 followers on Twitter like Dave McClure.

But just consider the flip side of the Andreessen Horowitz thesis.  If you are not among the elite firms that are vying for those 15 deals that account for 97% of all venture capital profits, then you are one of hundreds of investors that are fiercely competing to get your share of the remaining 3%. (Argue with the size of pie, but not the point.)

Investors must dig into the competitive advantages afforded by open innovation, network learning and connectivism. Yesterday, McClure described these effects as a “modern-day guild” in this prescient review of the evolution of startup investing taking place globally. (Word up! for tools, tech & data platforms like Cdling that are making investing more efficient.)

Marc and Ben are real world tech rock stars.  It is not the size of your social media footprint that matters the most, it is how you leverage the best tools and strategies to succeed in the real world.  

We are talking about who you really are.  Not public relations.

As Cdling moves from Alpha into our Beta release, we will introduce our Cdling Scores that bring your real world reputation into our platform for building trust with other investors, startups and advisors. 

Cdling is designed to fit the time, focus and priorities of investors. It is a level playing field where those who are really plugged into innovation can thrive.

“Dig deeper, though, and Cdling brings intriguing visibility to the rest of the Silicon Valley ecosystem.” George Anders, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist, Startups’ Best Patrons, Forbes, Mar. 8, 2012.

We will save you time; deliver curated, contextualized news; help you prospect new deals; monitor your portfolio and its competitors; enable you to discover and build relationships with new co-investors (increasingly over greater distances) and most importantly, we will help you measure risk and make better decisions.

Sure we want to improve your returns. That drives us. Beyond that, we see a world where more, great Founders focus on bigger, game changing problems, faster and overall success rates for venture investors improve dramatically. Cut back on the wasted time and capital: better world.

We have already developed Cdling Scores for California and Ontario, with plans for more than 20 tech hubs globally.  In the meantime, if you are an experienced investor and want to trial Cdling, email me at michael@cdling.com and we will get you going with an advanced standing.

What signals are you sending to the best entrepreneurs and LPs?

First of all, we would like to thank again the MaRS Mentor Network and Howard Morgan for working with us on an experiment with the Cdling platform.

It was a big learning curve for everyone.  We observed many insights into the differences between putting startups in front of investors based entirely upon a traditional referral and the referral approach offered by Cdling that captures each cycle of activity for each startup so that each effort contributes to the ongoing profile of the company.

Social media has had an interesting effect for event planning.  You can publish details months and weeks before the event but attention and most of the confirmations around it take place within the last week before. 

Building reputation take times.  So while each event (whether that be an accelerator’s demo day or something that Cdling is more directly involved in organizing) typically operates on short time lines, to get the minimum of 10 opinions around each startup that we are looking for, the startup needs to be proactively engaged, well in advance.  That makes sense.

Nevertheless, we were able to report on the quality of opinions to create our shortlist for Howard and the direct input of the MaRS team, who has an established, vigorous selection process, was a dominant force.

Congrats again to the selected startups.  Keep in mind that First Round made the final selections and they have an existing portfolio of over 150 companies.  So if you did not make the final selection, it can easily have more to do with First Round’s existing interests than anything to do with your startup or team.

On the morning the 26th, immediately after the Office Hours meetings, we sought feedback on Cdling from the startups who demonstrated their interest in meeting with Howard, the team at MaRS and Howard.  In the days and weeks since, we have followed up with each again and completed our own analysis of what worked and what didn’t.

Lots to improve in the process of welcoming new members and startups on to the Cdling platform, screen them (we have a waiting list for alpha members at the moment) and focusing them on what to do.  More to come on that.

To begin with we have responded to the feedback with a simplified UI for collecting opinions on each startup and a straight forward Leaderboard to highlight top startups and players.

We hope that you like this next iteration.  We know it isn’t the end.  Only the beginning.

Thanks again,

Michael

What if you could crunch data to find the most undervalued players in the startup world? Toronto-based Cdling Capital Services Inc. thinks it can.

A Toronto company is using Moneyball-like metrics to rank the most valuable - and undervalued - players in the startup world.

Cdling (pronounced ‘seedling’) Capital Services Inc. has developed an analytics platform that measures the reputational influence of people within the startup ecosystem, including investors, company founders and experts. By analyzing data about them — such as their social connections and links to financing deals - the program ranks these players by how much clout and impact they have in the startup realm.

Article written by ITBusiness.ca’s Christine Wong.

For the June 26, 2012 edition of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, Cdling Capital Services Founder Michael Cayley was invited on the show to explain crowdfunding works and how it is being applied to connecting investors and startups through Cdling’s platform. 

Topics covered in the interview include the emergence of crowdfunding in various realms of life, as well as the direction it is taking and the need for changes to legislation to allow a shift from the older regulated methods of investment towards the more open platform of crowdfunding.

From The Agenda’s Youtube Video Description: Social media + entrepreneurial spirit = crowdfunding. The Agenda finds out what’s happening and what’s possible when worldwide networks can donate to, pre-buy and even buy equity in local upstart companies.

Cdling is dedicated to helping startups thrive.

We are pleased to announce that we are hosting Sherwood Neiss, the co-founder of StartupExemption.com in Toronto on July 16, 2012.

Part of this day is about kick starting the conversation about crowdfunding in Ontario (and Canada).

We extended an invitation to representatives of the Federal Government (via the PMO and Industry Canada), the Ontario Provincial Government and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) to meet with Sherwood for a briefing about the emergence of crowdfunding in the United States.

Ontario has responded and we have meetings scheduled with senior policy representatives from the offices of the Premier, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation.

We also have a briefing session confirmed with representatives of the OSC. 

Stay tuned.  We have tried, and would be grateful if we could make the right connection with the Federal Government as well to get them involved.

At 1 pm we are co-hosting an all party OPEN BRIEFING with the Centre for Social Innovation, to help connect MPPs, Federal government representatives, the OSC Small and Medium Enterprise Committee and all parties interested in promoting the adoption of legal crowdfunding in Ontario (and Canada) at the CSI Annex Lounge.

Sign up here: http://helpstartupsthrive.eventbrite.com

And please participate in OPEN RSVP.  Take this issue into your own hands by reaching out to determine who is coming and who is not and why.

An Inspiring Startup Story

The story of StartupExemption.com, is the story of three entrepreneurs who defied the odds and led a 579 day campaign to get bi-partisan support in both the Congress and Senate and obtain Presidential approval to make crowdfunding legal in the United States.

Inspiring, educating and helping startup enthusiasts connect are the reasons why we are behind Startup Grind Toronto.

On July 16, we will end off a jam packed day, with a typical Startup Grind style fire side chat with Sherwood, where founders, funders and mentors will have their best chance to hear about the trials and tribulations of this historic drive to change how innovation will be funded in the US. Get your tickets here.

Once again, ITBusiness.ca will be collaborating with Startup Grind Toronto to cover this event with a webcast and live reporting.