Secret Dinners Attempt to Whet Angel Investors’ Appetites

While Boston is home to some great angel groups, including CommonAngels and Launchpad Venture Group, we’re definitely at a deep angel deficit, compared to our country’s other innovation region. But I’m encouraged by some new data points I’ve been hearing about.

Typically, angels invest in a fledgling company well before the product or technology has been “fully baked’’ or the first customer order signed – there may just be one or two employees. And “angel money is often the least restrictive, least dilutive kind of financing available to an entrepreneur,’’ says Lawrence Gennari, a partner at Choate Hall & Stewart in Boston. One of Gennari’s goals is to “create and discover more angels.’’

To that end, Gennari has been running a secret dinner series this summer, bringing together angels with company founders. “There’s no agenda,’’ he says. “We just talk about what we’re seeing.’’ The investors who attend, Gennari says, “don’t want to join a group [of angel investors], and they don’t want to be listed on a website. Their view is, just show me something that’s interesting.’’