From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Aug 12 1999 - 18:26:34 MDT
> Brian Atkins <brian@posthuman.com> wrote:
> I was not at Extro4, so perhaps you got some tips on companies
> in need of funding.
Only from the perspective of the Geron & Kronos presentations.
Geron is currently public, Kronos is not.
> That is the big problem with forming an angel group- finding the
> companies.
I wasn't thinking of an Extropian Angel Group per se. I doubt
that collectively as a group we have the resources for this type
of thing. (To do this properly you have to have a capital pool
of millions of dollars.) I was thinking more along the lines
of an Investment Advisory group (club) to review and recomend
Extropian investments. Examples of this would be Geron and
Alteon which are at very different stages of development but
since they are working on pro-longevity biotech, they would
be the type of investments we might want to pursue.
My main rationale for this is to see if it is possible to
create a counter-trend to the market emphasis on short-term
ROI. The volatility in the markets favors the big players
and not the small investors. The ra-ra Internet stock
enthusiasm creates a bad climate for biotech startups
that have much longer development cycles. If one always
goes for the short-term, high-ROI investments, that means
the slow-to-develop plays (nanotech, anti-aging research,
etc.) will always get left out. So one either has to
rely on government funding (which many people in this group
intensely dislike) or wait a long time until the foundation
technologies develop to the point where the idea development
is done by many people simultaneously (presumably lowering
the profit margins and ROIs).
While I would not argue that one should put all of ones
investment portfolio into ExI/Foresight compatible investments,
it could be that a collection of individuals with a long term
focus, could invest some percentage (10-20%?) of their investment
dollars into these types of investments with the assumption of
really long term payoffs as well as providing some economic
stability for corporate "management". I know that I
(as say the president of a biotech company), would be
much more comfortable pursuing a long term strategy
if I knew that some fraction of my shares were being
held by investors that were not going to read every
quarterly report with the intent to sell at the first
hint of bad news or difficulties.
> By the time you see a real press release from a company,
> they are probably past the angel stage and into the big VC money
> (past where we might want to invest).
I would disagree. If you are looking for a big short-term
"payoff" then you want to play the Angel game. But the big
payoff has associated risks. I'm looking more for the
approach that if you believe a company has a fundamentally
sound long-term strategy but one that will not sell well
given current mindsets or short-term ROI focus, then you
want to invest for the long term. Essentially, these
would be the type of investments you would want to fill
your portfolio with if you had to undergo Cryonic suspension.
The "buy em & forget about em" investments.
> You have to be able to meet the management team and really
> question them before you will have enough confidence to invest.
While this is always true, it is less of a problem if the company
is already "public". For example, if Zyvex ever went public,
I would certainly be one to accumulate that stock on any
market "softness". I know the management, I believe in
and want to support the work and if they are successful, I think
I would make a lot of money. What we need is a "short list"
of 10-20 companies like that that we "know" will ultimately
be successful if they survive long enough. You need a number
of companies to distribute the risk.
Robert
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