Foundry Group to invest in AngelList firms

BOULDER – Venture capital firm Foundry Group plans to invest $2.5 million in companies raising money on AngelList, an online fundraising tool that combines social networking and crowdsourcing.

As an experiment, Boulder-based Foundry has started FG Angels, managing partner Brad Feld said in a blog post. The FG Angels goal is to make 50 seed investments of $50,000 each to AngelList companies by the end of 2014, Feld said. FG Angels will put in the initial amount to create a $500,000 “syndicate” for each company. Other investors can join a “syndicate” with a minimum investment of $1,000, Feld said.

“If you know us, we love to experiment with stuff, rather than theorize about things,” Feld said in the blog post. “We are huge believers in seed and early-stage investing.”

Foundry’s new venture comes one week after new rules from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission went into effect that allow companies to publicly advertise the fact they’re raising money. Before the change in the rules, public advertising, or general solicitation, was a big no-no.

San Francisco-based AngelList helps new companies find investors. The website currently has about 100,000 startup company profiles. It has raised as much as $12 million in funding for startups in a 30-day period. AngelList takes 5 percent from companies that raise money through the website. An area of the website called AngelList Syndicates Leads takes 15 percent.

Foundry Group’s seed investing level is now more than 1,000 companies, through the four directors’ personal investments, through TechStars, a startup incubator co-founded by Feld, and through other VC funds, among other things, Feld said in the blog post.

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