Business Opportunities Weblog

July 28, 2006 by Dane Carlson | 1 Comment

Business Week:

“Barbara Boxer, a practicing attorney in Milwaukee, knows just how difficult it can be for women entrepreneurs to raise money. She ran her own mail-order medical supply company for 20 years before selling it in 1990, and now many of her clients are women who own businesses.

After participating in a conference for women trying to raise funding, the 56-year-old decided to take matters into her own hands. Last summer, Boxer started Women Angels, a group of women investors that focuses on women-owned businesses in the Midwest. Now the group’s 22 members are getting ready to make their first investments. They will put $150,000 to $500,000 in each of two companies, one in biotech and one in transportation.

Boxer is part of a small but growing legion of women angel investors, who are using their own money to back young companies. Often, those are companies led by women. “We’re seeing more women entrepreneurs who are cashing out of their businesses,” says Jeffrey Sohl, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire. “The more women who are successful in business, particularly in entrepreneurship, the more women angels we’re likely to see.” That’s because the prime candidates to be angel investors are former entrepreneurs. There are at least six women-focused angel groups in the U.S., with an additional dozen or so just getting started, according to a recent report from the Kauffman Foundation.

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