Barry Moltz
Angel Investor
In an unstable economic climate, Barry Moltz, a long-time entrepreneur, saw the need for a stand alone group of serious angel investors to deals in the Chicago area. As an angel investor, he co-founded, Prairie Angels two years ago.
Barry Moltz is the co-founder of Prairie Angels investing company established in 2000. Prairie Angels is a team of private investors dedicated to financing and guiding fledgling and developing businesses and business owners towards expansion and greater profits. Prairie Angels is a 60 member investing firm paying $500 membership fee each.
As member of Prairie Angels screening committee, Moltz has years of experience reviewing more than 500 business strategies annually. As co-founder, Moltz meets and counsels entrepreneurs on ways to start, finance, and grow their business. His “hacker” website www.barrymoltz.com offers entrepreneurial advice and answers a range of investment questions. Moltz has also recently co-founded Prairie Angel Capital Fund with Prairie Angel investors and venture community members. The Fund conducts due diligence of companies for seed capital and further investments. Details of Prairie Angel Capital Fund can be found at www.pafund.com
Moltz has authored several books on business investment. He has won accolades for his work “Small Business: Where Personal and Professional Lives Meet”, and is featured as an Entrepreneur’s Angel on Entrepreneur’s Help Page in www.tannedfeet.com. A study on Moltz and his investment advice is part of the “Attracting Capital from Angels” book by Brian Hill and Dee Power, (www.attractingcapitalfromangels.com). The book is a John Wiley and Sons publication.
Moltz’s professional career started with IBM, where he achieved several awards for his innovative business concepts. He left IBM to be part of Whittman-Hart Company and assume the role of Director of Sales. Following this, Moltz co-founded 3 startup businesses. His last founded business, SciTech, was an e-commerce reseller of technical and scientific engineering software
SciTech also performed direct mail cataloging. Before selling SciTech in 1999, Moltz served as its CEO.
How Prairie Angels selects companies for investment?
Applications from interested entrepreneurs are accepted at www.pafund.com
3 potential companies are selected for presentation before Prairie Angels. These companies are selected by a screening committee consisting of 12 members who review approximately 18 business strategies annually
Following presentation, screened entrepreneurs are questioned extensively on their business objectives, goals and plans. Further interviews may also be organized by the angel committee
Prairie Angel investors focus on not just providing capital finance to businesses, but also offer investors scope to work with the different companies and industrial sectors they invest in. Angel investors are believed to bring skills and experience to a company. The aim of Prairie Angels is to bring expertise and companies together, and help the latter benefit from angel resources. Prairie Angels invest between $350,000 and $700,000 per business and facilitate companies with expert team of private investors
Good business ideas, as well as people, attract investments. Since private investors have less money business finance, companies should have strong business strategies, management and customer base to attract angel investments. Since their primary focus is companies that are developing and looking for less capital, a number of Government tax schemes are provided to private investors to encourage them to seek out good businesses.
The aim of angel funding is to facilitate budding concerns sustain and develop themselves. According to Prairie Angels, structured investments help startups grow in the long-term.
Barry Moltz can be contacted on his Linkedin here here