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A former Boston-area software executive turned angel investor has begun forming a new angel group in the Hub.
Christopher Mirabile, formerly the U.S.-based chief financial officer and general counsel at Irish software developer IONA Technologies PLC, has raised a core fund for Race Point Capital Group LLC, the size of which he declined to disclose, and is seeking angel investors to join the nascent investing group.
Race Point will focus on investments in software, Internet, media and telecom technology, and will consider some investments in clean technology, Mirabile said. He declined to name the investors who have contributed to his core fund but said his backers are successful hedge fund managers not based in Boston.
A member of Boston-based angel groups Launchpad and Boston Harbor Angels since before his departure from IONA — shortly after the company was acquired by Bedford-based Progress Software Inc. in September, 2008, for $162 million — Mirabile said the new group will seek ways to fund innovation without “the trappings of a company,” using new distribution models and platforms such as mobile app stores.
“I think there is opportunity to think about incubation or funding at the innovation or product level,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of business plans in the last year that they feel like they’re a product trying to be a company. There may not be a need to be a company.”
He said the new group will also differentiate itself from existing angel groups by providing a “bill of rights” for investors and entrepreneurs, which will guarantee investor access to deals, and set precepts for respecting entrepreneurs’ and investors’ time. He suggested Race Point will also be characterized by “curiosity,” and “openness to…debate.”
Prior to beginning at IONA as senior counsel in 1997, Mirabile was an associate at Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault LLP, the storied Boston-based startup law firm that dissolved in 2005. Before Testa, the 1994 Boston College Law School graduate was a consultant at PriceWaterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Mirabile was not part of the staff cuts Progress announced late Wednesday, he said.
Lexington-based CommonAngels managing director James Geshwiler told Mass High Tech in an interview published this week that the Boston startup economy should expect to see more new angel groups landing. “I’ve been on the phone realistically once a month with someone in the New England area who is forming something,” he said today.
In a downturn, even as many angels close their checkbooks, new groups can hope that individual investors will be driven to join, Geshwiler said. There are 140,200 angels currently active, according to an October report by the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research. Of those, only a small percentage are already organized into formal groups, Geshwiler said. Many individually active angels are accustomed to syndicating informally on investments, and that has become difficult, he said.
“I’ve seen people time and time again say the reason they don’t want to join groups is they don’t need to: ‘I can just pull my buddies together and we can put in enough money,’” he said. “In downturns, that’s not possible.”
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