Tech Coast Angels invested $13.7 million in the first half of 2019, the largest amount invested by the organization since it was founded in 1997. It’s also more than double the amount that Tech Coast Angels invested during the same period last year. The group invested $6.4 million during the first half of 2018.
The increase was driven by a couple of factors. To start, Tech Coast Angels has reached an all-time high in membership levels, with a total of 400 members.
The group also made a couple of large deals in early 2019. It invested more than $2 million in Atlazo, a San Diego-based company making semiconductor technology for wearable health devices, and invested more than $1 million in DTx Pharma, a company developing RNA therapeutics.
The group also make major investments in Irvine startup Buy-It-Installed and Los Angeles startup Neural Analytics.
“We continue to see quality and scope of exciting young companies seeking funding from us,” Tech Coast Angels Chairman Grant Van Cleve said in a news release. “We are proud to contribute to this important engine of growth in our economy – new companies are where all the net job growth has occurred in the past couple of decades. Innovation is alive and well, and the enthusiasm of the companies who come to us for funding reinforces our goal of being the best place for the best companies to find funding and succeed.”
Tech Coast Angels made a total of 28 investments in the first half of 2019. That included funding for 17 new companies and 11 follow-on rounds. The average investment amount was $490,000, and the median company valuation was $10 million.
The new investments include:
• Advekit – a marketplace that matches patients with mental health professionals
• Atlazo — continuous health data monitoring, aggregation and analytics
• Ceresti — support family caregivers for multi-chronic patients
• Cloudkeyz — secured access management replacing call-box intercom
• Elemeno Health — transforms client healthcare with actionable guides at point of need
• Elysium Therapeutics — new class of Rx painkillers that replace addictive opioids
• GoSite — most complete end-to-end software suite for local businesses
• GroGuru — precision soil and irrigation monitoring system
• Grolltex — sustainable method to make graphene
• Healionics — improved means of dialysis access in patients with kidney failure
• Industry Jump — marketplace for producers and film crew to find, hire and pay
• KettleSpace — transforms hospitality assets into a network of on-demand work space
• Lennd — event operations platform for modern event teams
• Mechandodontics — alternative to braces that moves the teeth independently
• Paradigm Diagnostics — finds best comprehensive treatment approaches for cancer
• Spiral Genetics — make large-scale genomic data mining possible
• Turn Technologies — solutions for the 1099 labor supply side of the gig economy
