Four businessmen in the Coachella Valley are forming an investor group intent on funding startups in a desert region thirsty for new companies and higher-paying jobs.
The Coachella Valley Angel Network needs local investors and entrepeneurs with scalable businesses.
"It's just now jelling. When it gets up and running and does some projects, [the network] will be around for a long, long time," said Scott Kiner, chief executive officer of Kiner Communications in Palm Desert.
Kiner donated funds to the group's first entrepreneurs' training program and invitation-only business plan competition scheduled for Dec. 8-9 at the University of California, Riverside Palm Desert campus. Network founder Steve Weiss lectures on angel investing and entrepreneurship at the UCR Richard J. Heckmann Center for Entrepreneurial Management in Palm Desert. He secured strategic advice for the group from Richard Heckmann himself, an entrepreneur and chief executive officer of K2 Inc., a Carlsbad sporting equipment company.
Heckmann advised the investors to look to the center's graduate students for promising entrepreneurial ideas.
"There's always been a lot of money around, but it's the ideas we're looking for," Heckmann said.
The investor network is young and in transition. But the fledgling organization may help create technology and other high-wage businesses in an area dominated by tourism and agriculture, Kiner said.
The Coachella Valley Angel Network is looking for young companies in which it can invest $100,000 to $500,000. It wants startups that utilize a proprietary technology to sell products or services. The group is interested in medical device startups, advertising and media businesses, energy and environmental firms and wholesale or retail operations capable of national scale, according to the network's Web site.
Kiner Communications will advise entrepreneurs sponsored by the network as they strive to market their ventures, Kiner said.
Other businesses, including Riverside-based law firm Best, Best & Krieger are contributing money, assistance and contacts, Weiss said.
Best, Best & Krieger is donating money to the network "to get it off the ground," said Henry Wells, intellectual property and business litigation attorney at the firm's Palm Desert office. He declined to reveal the donation amount. The law firm also contributes to the Heckmann Center, "so it's kind of combined with that contribution," he said.
The law firm will advise entrepreneurs on intellectual property issues, Wells said.
Other groups have faltered with angel investment in the region.
In 2003 Angel Strategies LLC in Tustin tried to establish an angel chapter for San Diego and the Inland Empire, including the Coachella Valley. But the effort failed for lack of connection with local entrepreneurs. "I think this one will be more successful because it is tied with UC Riverside and will have [better] organization," Wells said.
Weiss, a La Quinta resident from November to April, formed the network with three businessmen, also seasonal valley residents.
John Caldwell, an information technology executive and adjunct professor at the California State University, San Bernardino Palm Desert campus heads the group's screening committee.
The network advertised the Dec. 8-9 event on its Web site and in local newspapers. Network representatives met with the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership, Small Business Development Centers in Riverside and Palm Desert and the Service Corps of Retired Executives.
The group has received about 65 or 70 business plans, including 10 or 12 from valley startups. Perhaps six or seven of those entrepreneurs will present plans at the pitch session, Weiss said.
"It's been a developmental effort. It's not Silicon Valley, Boston or Seattle, but there's a core group of entrepreneurs and business people with promising ideas," Weiss said.
Weiss is an angel investor and former medical device company executive who lives in Healdsburg during the Coachella Valley's hot summer months. In 1998 he founded the North Bay Angels in San Francisco. The group has funded 35 to 40 companies over the past eight years, including a company that was acquired by medical device conglomerate Boston Scientific in Natick, Mass.
Kiner may approach the network next year for funding after he polishes up a business plan for an online hospitality industry marketing company he is developing. Kiner created three businesses this year and is planning to open another three in 2007. Students at the Heckmann Center worked on Kiner's business plan for the online marketing venture as a class project, he said.
The investor group is scouting for additional members. A September news article garnered about 12 inquiries from potential funders.
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