allianceofangels-logo1The Alliance of Angels, one of the longest running angel investment groups in the Pacific Northwest, has raised a new $5.3 million seed fund that it will use to bankroll a new group of startup entrepreneurs. Backers of the fund include Madrona Venture Group, Trilogy Equity Partners and Voyager Capital, as well as angel investors such as Geoff Entress, Linden Rhoads, Michael Schutzler and Steve Singh.

“We’ve found that many local startups are still undercapitalized after raising their angel round, and so run short on fuel before hitting the milestones needed to raise their next round,” said Yi-Jian Ngo, managing director of the Alliance of Angels. “Our fund helps to plug this gap.”

The new seed fund will invest alongside Alliance of Angels members, who make their investment decisions independently. In total, Alliance of Members invest more than $10 million in over 20 startup companies each year.

Past investments include Clarisonic, DocuSign, Elemental Technologies, Geospiza, Julep, Insitu and SNAPin, with the aggregate internal rate of return of the group’s investments exceeding 20 percent over the past 10 years. Since 1997, members of the club have invested over $100 million in more than 200 companies, providing a nice feeder system for later-stage venture capital firms.

Venture capital financing increased 27 percent in the Seattle metro area in 2014, clocking in at $1.24 billion. Even so, many believe that the market could use more early-stage capital, one of the concluding thoughts of this GeekWire column I penned last week.

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