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Tech Coast Angels Looks To Shorten Funding Cycle

The Tech Coast Angels, Southern California's most active, organized angel investment group, has a goal: cut down the time it takes to fund a startup presenting to the organization. The angel group--which in the past, has been criticized for taking a long time to make an investment decision in a company--said this week that it has launched a program called Screening2Deal to shortcut investment decisions in startups in Los Angeles, to 30 days or less.

According to the group, a key part of the program is pitch and screening sessions being held every other week at Santa Monica's ROC--one of the area's new gathering spaces--in an effort to reach out to local startups. The Tech Coast Angels, although one of the most active investors in the region, has typically taken longer to invest in companies than individual venture capital or non-affiliated angels, mostly due to the large number of angel investors participating in the group.

The new program by the LA Chapter of the TCA is similar to efforts it has run in its San Diego area to reach out to earlier stage companies, via its Seed program, which it started a few years ago.