Connecting Funders and Founders: The Beyond Angel Network
— by Sarah Jennings
If you know me, you know I’m a planner. There are few things I appreciate more than a well thought out plan. At Beyond Angel Network, we had a wonderful plan to host our inaugural pitch event at Cedarville University at the end of March, 2020. Everything was in place: guest speakers were lined up, companies were chosen for the pitch event, panelists were selected, and guests were registered.
I don’t need to tell you what happened next. As COVID-19 began to rapidly progress, canceling many events including ours, we were saddened to have to push our event off till October, but we knew it had to be done. The unexpected events of the COVID-19 crisis provided us with an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and rethink our strategy for the next few months. As everything else went to digital platforms, we thought “Hey, why not us too?” and thus, we began to prepare to hold our first virtual Investor Impact event in June.
We had no idea what to expect for a turn out as it was our first event and since it would be all done virtually. As we communicated the message that we were going to be hosting an event that would feature a sneak peek at one of the companies who would be coming back for our October event, we began to gain more and more interest from our audience. Before we knew it, we had reached our max capacity of registrants for the event. That was a problem we were thrilled to have! We upped our registration capacity and were thrilled to see more registrants flow in.
We featured Christian owned VR technology start-up, Immerse, as a taste of what our investors can look forward to at our October 23rd event. We also had a special guest, Ty Bryant, who is one of our angel members. He has invested a disruptive biomed product to address COVID-19, which is in the final patent process. He shared a brief presentation of how he partnered with a supplier to bring over one million PPE face shields to Ohio. At our event we also eagerly shared program updates and how the Beyond Angel Network is transforming Cedarville University and what is to come in the future for Beyond.
What made the event even more special was how top students, as members of the Venture Capital Analyst Team (VCAT), were able to play key roles. Our VCAT analysts, led by Assistant Dean of the School of Business Dr. Jeffrey Guernsey, conducted the vetting process on potential companies prior to the event. The lead VCAT analyst, Andrew Bitner, introduced Immerse at the event and facilitated the Q&A session following the company’s pitch.
We highly value our VCAT analysts. Each of the eight students that make up the team showcase outstanding leadership skills. As we begin the process of building the VCA Team for this upcoming school year, we have already seen an uptick in interest in the internship program as competition for the analyst position has increased. We’re excited to watch the internship program continue to evolve.
The future for Beyond, and the whole faith-driven movement, is bright. Our goal is to be the Midwest hub for faith-driven entrepreneurship and capital investment for hundreds of for profit companies with a biblical worldview. We believe that God has positioned us to lead other Christian universities to reshape the culture for God’s glory in the marketplace through entrepreneurship. Our angel network has provided us the opportunity to offer top business students internships where they receive real-world experience and unique opportunities that are unparalleled to that of our peers. This has massive potential to dramatically transform Cedarville University.
As our angel network contributes and participates in an emerging faith-driven investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem, our hope is to multiply the effect of the faith-driven investment movement through our participation. Both as a source of funding as a group of investors, and as a source of deal flow through our business accelerator. It is our belief that through our angel network, and our future angel fund, we will continue to eliminate the problem of sources of capital being disconnected and indifferent to faith.
As we invest in profitable companies that will provide competitive financial returns to our angels, there will be more capital resources available to use for further kingdom impact investing. Here at Beyond, we are Christian funders investing in Christian founders. Every one of us has the opportunity to impact the culture around us. United under a common goal, let’s choose to make a kingdom impact by investing in companies that provide a financial return alongside a kingdom return that moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot steal.