John May is an American venture capitalist, the Managing Partner of the New Vantage Group, [1] which has organized five angel investing organizations in the Washington, D.C. area since 1999, placing funds into more than 50 companies.
John May is an American venture capitalist, the Managing Partner of the New Vantage Group, [1] which has organized five angel investing organizations in the Washington, D.C. area since 1999, placing funds into more than 50 companies.
May is the co-author of two books on angel investing, Every Business Needs an Angel [2] and State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing. [3] May is Chairman Emeritus of the Angel Capital Association and former Co-Chairman of the World Business Angel Association. [4] He is a lead instructor for the "Power of Angel Investing" seminar produced by the Angel Resource Institute and supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Batten Fellow at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and a Managing Director of Seraphim, [5] a UK-based venture capital fund. May also served on the board of directors of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, the trade association for the venture capital industry in the Mid-Atlantic region. [6]
May began his work in angel investing when he co-founded the Investors' Circle, [7] a network of over 200 investors who use private capital to fund businesses that address social and environmental issues. May co-founded The Dinner Club, [8] an investment group of 60 Washington, D.C. angel investors who collectively invested in regional early-stage ventures. A larger private investor pool, the eMedia Club [9] with 75 members, followed it, and in 2000, the Washington Dinner Club. [10] In 2003, May launched Active Angel Investors [11] and in 2008 he created D’ArchAngels, [12] a group of accredited investors in the Mid-Atlantic region with significant expertise in the intelligence and defense industries. [13] In 2012, Active Angel Investors merged with another DC-area investors group, New Dominion Angels, of which May is a Co-Managing Partner.
Washingtonian Magazine named May one of its 100 Tech Titans of DC. [14] At the Angel Capital Association Summit in San Francisco, CA on May 6, 2010, May was awarded the 2010 Hans Severiens Award for contributions to the angel investing industry.
In 2015, May co-edited, with Mannie Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), the book Angel Without Borders: Trends and Policies Shaping Angel Investment Worldwide (World Scientific Press: Singapore). [15]
In 2016, May was selected as Co-Chairman of the newly formed Global Business Angel Network. [16]
May holds a BA from Earlham College and an MPA from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. [17] He has two adult children and resides in McLean, Virginia. [18]
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the firms they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
The Darden School of Business is the graduate business school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Darden School offers MBA, PhD, and Executive Education programs. The school was founded in 1955 and is named after Colgate Whitehead Darden Jr., a former Democratic congressman, governor of Virginia, and former president of the University of Virginia. Darden is on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It uses the case method as its sole method of teaching. The dean of the school is former McKinsey & Company executive Scott C. Beardsley.
Darden Restaurants, Inc. is an American multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. As of January 2022, the firm owns two fine dining restaurant chains: Eddie V's and The Capital Grille; and six casual dining restaurant chains: Olive Garden Italian Restaurant, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Yard House and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen. Until July 28, 2014, Darden also owned Red Lobster. Darden has more than 1,800 restaurant locations and more than 175,000 employees, making it the world's largest full-service restaurant company.
Ronald Crawford Conway is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's "super angels".
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Jean Case is an American businesswoman, author, and philanthropist who is chair of the board of National Geographic, CEO of Case Impact Network, CEO of the Case Foundation. She is married to AOL co-founder Steve Case.
Angel Capital Association (ACA) is the official industry alliance of over 100 of the largest angel investor groups in the United States. Since its founding in 2004, it has played a significant role in bringing together the previously separate angel and venture capital industries, in order to make networking, practices, and innovation in the field of investment easier.
Theodore John Leonsis is an American businessman, investor, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and former politician. He is a former senior executive with America Online (AOL), and the founder, chairman, and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. He is also founding member and investor in the Revolution Growth Fund, which includes investments in FedBid, Resonate Insights, Optoro and CustomInk. He founded and chaired of SnagFilms, which produced the documentary film Nanking. The film was honored with the 2009 News & Documentary Emmy Award. He is also an author, having published the book The Business of Happiness in 2010.
EBAN is an international, not-for-profit organisation whose function is to represent the pan-European early stage investor community, gathering member organisations and individuals from Europe and beyond. Originally targeted only to business angels, today EBAN is a cross sector representative of equity early stage investors.
An angel investor is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors usually give support to start-ups at the initial moments and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital, as well as to provide advice to their portfolio companies. Over the last 50 years, the number of angel investors has greatly increased.
Enterprise Capital Funds are financial schemes established by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in the United Kingdom to address a market weakness in the provision of equity finance to UK small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Government funding is used alongside private sector funds to establish funds that operate within the "equity gap"; targeting investments of up to £5 million that have the potential to provide a good commercial return. The first five funds supported under the scheme were launched in 2006-7 following a pathfinder competition. A further three funds were awarded ECF status in 2007. As of November 2019, 29 ECFs have been launched.
Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as the "practice where a large firm takes an equity stake in a small but innovative or specialist firm, to which it may also provide management and marketing expertise; the objective is to gain a specific competitive advantage." Examples of CVCs include GV and Intel Capital.
Alan E. Salzman is an American venture capitalist and managing partner. He is the co-founder, CEO and Managing Partner of VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in the U.S. and an investor in clean technology companies.
William Klippgen is a Singapore-based Norwegian entrepreneur and technology venture capitalist who co-founded the price comparison portal Zoomit.com. He served as one of the judges on the television series Angel's Gate, which was broadcast on Channel NewsAsia in 2012. Klippgen is a co-founder and serves as the Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital. He holds an MBA from INSEAD where he is an Entrepreneur in Residence.
Luis Villalobos was an engineer, entrepreneur and angel investor credited with founding the angel investing organization Tech Coast Angels in 1997. As an engineer and entrepreneur, Villalobos founded two companies and as an angel investor, invested in over 50 ventures. In 2006 Luis was the recipient of the Hans Severiens Award for his accomplishments in the advancement of angel investing.
Christopher M. Schroeder is an American entrepreneur, advisor and investor in interactive technologies and social communications. He has written the first look at startups in the Arab World, “Startup Rising -- The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East” released in August 2013 with a new edition in 2015 and one in Arabic in 2016. It was published by MacMillan/Palgrave, with a foreword by Marc Andreessen.
New York Angels is an organization of seed capital angel investors that provides equity capital for early stage companies, primarily in the field of technology and new media. It is based in New York City. Members typically invest between US$100,000 and US$1,500,000 in companies that have begun operations, but have not reached a stage for acquiring venture capital.
Tige Savage is an American investor, co-founder of Revolution LLC, a principal investment firm based in Washington, D.C., and a managing partner at Revolution Ventures, which has investments in companies such as Bloomscape, BrightCellars, Casted GoodBuy Gear, Mint House, Policygenius, Sila and Wagmo. He was a key investor in LivingSocial in its founding years.
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Anthony Richard Clarke is a British chartered accountant, chartered secretary, and businessman. Clarke is the chief executive officer of Angel Capital Group and the managing director of London Business Angels.
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