Rockies Venture Club invests in 25 startups in '20

Friday December 18, 2020 0 comments Tags: Denver, Rockies Venture Club

DENVER -- The longest actively running angel investment group in the U.S., Rockies Venture Club (RVC), closed 2020 with 25 early-stage company investments.  

The 2020 investments are on track with the number of financings RVC has completed annually since 2016. But amid the global pandemic and extreme economic uncertainty, RVC said the investment activity is a strong signal that the Colorado-based investor group believes in the potential of entrepreneurs.

Early in the year, many expected startup fundraising to decrease by close to $28 billion globally when compared to the investment activity of 2019, according to Startup Genome.

Angel investing and venture capital have historically required face-to-face meetings to build relationships, conduct due diligence, and to ultimately make investments.

Entrepreneurs have had to adjust to raising capital in a virtual environment in 2020; this virtual setting was influential in early projections of capital being restricted this year.

While funding data for the full year is not yet available, highly active angel investors saw opportunity this year to support startup companies that are helping to solve the challenges catalyzed by the pandemic.

One such company is the Colorado-based education technology company EdCuration. The early-stage startup provides a virtual marketplace for K-12 educational curriculum vendors to promote and sell to curriculum buyers, like school districts.

As remote learning was required of so many schools nationwide in 2020, platforms like EdCuration saw a boost in adoption, helping schools and students to adjust to new formats of learning.

RVC led EdCuration’s seed investment round in 2020 after founder and CEO Timeri Tolnay took part in the RVC HyperAccelerator program in January.

Many investors later met EdCuration at RVC’s Angel Capital Summit in early March 2020, one of the last in-person conferences held in Colorado before necessary shelter-in-place restrictions were put into place.

Despite the shift to virtual events and workshops, RVC continued to offer over 150 events in 2020; this included the 32nd annual Colorado Capital Conference in August, held virtually for the first time.

RVC said it plans to continue to offer education, networking, and pitch events in 2021 virtually as the investors in the angel group and entrepreneurs in the community have shared that the virtual setting can make forming relationships and investments more efficient in many ways.

RVC said it has also created a new type of venture capital fund for next year, the 2021 RVC Vintage Fund, which allows for accredited investors to achieve diversification by making just one investment in a pooled fund that will then be invested across the 25 companies that the RVC investment group expects to invest in next year.

Founded in 1985, RVC’s mission is to advance economic development by actively connecting the most promising entrepreneurial companies with Angel investors, venture capitalists, and other community members.

Every year Rockies Venture Club offers over 140 educational programs, mastermind groups, Angel forums, and two major conferences for both investors and entrepreneurs.