Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic: Blazing a New Path for Angel Innovation in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH - Jan. 21, 2015 - PRLog -- Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic (K4-MA) is proud to announce that it will have its first meeting of the new year during the week of January 26. Individuals who are interested in attending still have time left to join in on one of the most important events in the investment community, though that time is quickly winding down.

Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic – with chapters in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Miami, and New York and part of the global Keiretsu Forum angel network – will present early-stage companies to investors at next week’s monthly forum event. The monthly Pittsburgh meeting will be held on Friday, January 30, at the law office of Schnader Harrison (120 Fifth Avenue) from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The meeting will showcase technology companies exclusively in the life-sciences technology industry, life science companies, and mobile application companies.

Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic is an angel investor network that operates on a global scale with more than 1100 accredited members and 34 chapters spread out over three continents. It was designed to create a collaborative relationship between investing members and experts in the industry who participate via either direct partnership or sponsorship. These highly sought-after relationships are used to generate a quality deal flow which puts emphasis on talent, capital, expert guidance, technology and other resources required to build prosperous ventures from promising investment opportunities.

Becoming a member of Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic gives investors access to a huge network of entrepreneurs, allows them to participate in extensive screenings of investment opportunities, creates the ability to perform extensive due diligence, establishes robust relationships with sponsors and more.

“Membership in Keiretsu Forum provides accredited investors with access to incredible DealFlow coupled with unique swarm mentality that allows our members to work together to get to the best possible investment decisions,” says Howard Lubert, Mid-Atlantic Region Co-Founder and Area President.

According to a recent article published on Forbes.com, angel investors are expected to do both bigger and better deals in 2015 and beyond. Much of this is due to an increasing level of syndication around the country, which itself has come about through establishing both trusted professional relationships and a standard syndication process. Forbes also expects some of the syndication to be international.

Forbes also indicated that investment innovations in general were speeding up the time it takes to complete a deal through the synchronization of investment activities. AngelList, SeedInvest and similar types of platforms are credited with innovating new deal structures in a digital realm.

Other trends that were discussed in the Forbes article include the fact that both the M&A and IPO markets will continue to strengthen in 2015 and pressures for valuations will continue to increase. The latter fact is expected to have the biggest impact in both Boston and Silicon Valley, though that impact will quickly spread to other parts of the country.

2015 is also expected to bring about changes regarding not only what is investing money but also where, which will change the face of angel investment in general. Women will continue to grow in significance as investors and the early-stage ecosystem will continue to grow as a thriving source of opportunity. Much of this is largely due to the concept of sector verticalization, which is where everything from angel groups to the platforms themselves are now specializing in sectors like hardware or education.

About Keiretsu Forum

Keiretsu Forum is a global angel investor network with more than 1100 accredited investor members throughout 34 chapters on three continents. Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic (www.KeiretsuForum-MidAtlantic.com) consists of four chapters that function as a single entity – Philadelphia, DC, Pittsburgh and New York. Keiretsu is a Japanese term for a group of organizations with interlocking business relationships, and Keiretsu Forum is a group of accredited investors with interlocking investment interests. Each chapter or region meets monthly to present rigorously screened candidates for investments. Keiretsu Forum’s mission is “Great Association with Quality Deal Flow.”

The Mid-Atlantic Region presents approximately five deals a month, 60 a year, to its members and accredited investor guests. Slightly more than 10 percent get funded, which is higher than the industry average. Approximately 36 funding applications are submitted each month to the K4-MA DealRoom website, www.K4-DealRoom.com and vetted by industry specialists. Of the 36 funding applications submitted, About 10 are then vetted by members at monthly screening meetings. There, they participate in a highly structured presentation-and-feedback-learning session. Three to four of the screened companies are then invited to present at subsequent monthly Forum meetings. Entrepreneurs invited to move forward to the Forum meetings must participate in mandatory professional coaching sessions to optimize the delivery of their presentations and also agree to participate in the road show to all four cities in the region, with exposure to approximately 100 investors. Subsequently, all 900+ members post information about their companies on the organization’s online global deal room for reference. For global information visit: www.KeiretsuForum.com.

K4-MA Contact:
Howard Lubert
Mid-Atlantic Region Co-Founder and Area President
Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic
HLubert@KeiretsuForum.net

Media Contact:
Kosi Harris
Percepture
kosi@percepture.com

*Due to the new SEC 506(c) ruling made in September 2013, Keiretsu Forum cannot disclose the names of the companies that will be presented at these events until after funding is received.