User:Achint83/Cornerstone Angels

Cornerstone Angels is a membership-based private investment group composed of successful entrepreneurs and business executives, angel investors. The group seeks to provide financial capital, mentorship, and advisory support to high growth organizations. The company considers opportunities nationally, but is focused on the greater Midwest given its Northbrook, IL base.

Cornerstone Angels was founded by Michael Gruber and Laurence Hayward in October 2006, and was an out birth of previous angel investment activities that Michael was involved with and led since 2000. The group invests across sectors with particular interest within Software, Media & Entertainment, Mobile, Manufacturing & Industrial, Consumer/Retail & Food/Beverage, Business Services, Healthcare Services and CleanTech. The group does not currently invest in Life Sciences, Biotech, or Real Estate.

The group looks to foster strong cooperation amongst its members, and allows for strong friendships and business relationships. In addition to investment opportunities, Cornerstone Angels also provides a strong mechanism to bring together seasoned executives with companies to help accelerate growth.

Fulfilling Critical Funding Needs
The Cornerstone Angels group is focused on closing the funding gap between the ‘friends and family’ stage and the Venture Capital stage. This has always been a difficult stage to raise capital, and with this difficulty becoming even more acute in the last few years given the economic downturn. The goal of the group is to provide their financial and mentor capital to help build a dynamic entrepreneurial and investor community in the Midwest, though we do consider opportunities across the US. To work towards this goal, the group targets opportunities which can grow quickly into large sustainable businesses, and which will fuel innovation and job creation within the region.

They target companies raising $500K to $3MM, with pre-money valuation up to $5MM with a sweet spot for initial investment being in the range of $100K to $500K. With these considerations, the group is either involved as a single party in a small round or as part of a larger round. Based on the specific financing needs, the group's investments have ranged from as little as $10k up to ~$1MM, and through their network and alliances with multiple investment parties, they have the ability to bring together syndicates of several million dollars.

Cornerstone Angels is a member of the Angel Capital Association and is active in collaboration and syndication with groups both in the Midwest as well as across North America, including Boston, Silicon Valley, Dallas, Milwaukee, Madison, Los Angeles, Calgary, Edmonton, and NY Metro. The group actively supports companies and entrepreneurs under funding consideration by making introductions to other parties as relevant and based on interest.

Investment Process
The application process for the group is very competitive. The group has had an average deal flow of around 250-300 deals per year. Off the companies applying to the group around 5-6 are selected after a pre-screening evaluation. These companies present in front of an internal deal screening committee every other month. The most promising companies from the Deal Screening Session enter into an early due diligence investigation process carried out by an Investment Committee. Based on the results of the review 2-3 of these companies are then selected to present in front of the larger group of Investor Members at the Investment Meeting. Based on the interest level expressed by investor members investments are made either individually or as a Cornerstone entity. These Investment Meetings are organized 6 times a year.

Portfolio
Since the group's launch they have built up a portfolio of 17 companies. With approximately, $5 million invested in these companies, their portfolio companies have raised a combined amount exceeding $650MM from all sources. Two have been acquired; one has gone public, and another company recently filed its S-1 in March 2010 to go public.

Headquarter Address
2100 Sanders Road, Suite 170, Northbrook, IL 60062