Driving Our Economy Forward: The Gathering of Angels

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The best ideas in business need backing before they can *ever* make it to market. For more than 25 years, The Gathering of Angels has been helping young entrepreneurial companies plant the seeds of success. They recently moved their headquarters from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

Tarby Bryant explains, “It’s called the Chattanooga Gathering of Angels, and this was the launch of that event. It’s going to be a monthly event here at the UTC Innovation Center from 4:30 to 7:00. And we usually have four young companies like we did tonight, looking for seed and early-stage capital.”  

Paul Allen is the CEO and Founder of SOAR.

  He explains, “Networking is a huge factor in the successful outcome of startup companies. The journey of being an entrepreneur can be lonely, but if you surround yourself with people who have experience, who have network, who have wealth, the journey can be much more fulfilling and much more successful.” 

Tarby Bryant continues,” Since we started the Gathering of Angels 26 years ago, we’ve helped over 450 young companies find money ranging from 10,000 at the low end to 12.5 billion at the upper end. And I coach all of the presenters before they present. So, they know what the angel investors hot buttons are. They know that they’ve got to cover the management team. They’ve got to cover the customers that they have. They’ve got to have a reasonable and defensible valuation. They’ve got to have financial projections for five years.” 

Jeff Coffey is the founder of PIVIT.

He says, “Yeah, we’ve made some good new relationships here, and we got some great coaching kind of coming into how to do this. They’re in the room and they actually fill out a little form. That ten evaluation points. You get that right off the back and go, okay, now I know how I need to tune my story or craft different slides, or how communicating with the audience am I connecting?” 

Tarby Bryant concludes, “Well, I hope that they also pick up a relationship with investor as an advisor and as a coach. The investors have an opportunity to use their skills that they’ve developed over 30, 40, 50 years sometimes and help the young companies grow and keep.”