Secret dinners try to whet angel investors’ appetites

Wanted: More angels. We could use a population explosion around these parts - of angel investors.

While Boston is home to some great angel groups, including CommonAngels and Launchpad Venture Group, we’re definitely at a deep angel deficit, compared to our country’s other innovation region. But I’m encouraged by some new data points I’ve been hearing about.

Typically, angels invest in a fledgling company well before the product or technology has been “fully baked’’ or the first customer order signed - there may just be one or two employees. And “angel money is often the least restrictive, least dilutive kind of financing available to an entrepreneur,’’ says Lawrence Gennari, a partner at Choate Hall & Stewart in Boston. One of Gennari’s goals is to “create and discover more angels.’’

To that end, Gennari has been running a secret dinner series this summer, bringing together angels with company founders. “There’s no agenda,’’ he says. “We just talk about what we’re seeing.’’ The investors who attend, Gennari says, “don’t want to join a group [of angel investors], and they don’t want to be listed on a website. Their view is, just show me something that’s interesting.’’

I asked whether the monthly dinners, usually held in the western ’burbs, have produced any investment success stories. “It’s too early to say there are deals done, but some are in process,’’ Gennari says.

One other encouraging data point is Golden Seeds, an angel group that funds start-ups founded by women. It first put down roots in Boston three years ago, and the inaugural pair of angel investors were Jill Preotle (an investor in ZipCar and Dancing Deer Bakery) and Jean Hammond (JAM Technologies and iTeam, among others). They have now grown to 19 members in Boston, and the group actively encourages others to explore the world of angel investing. Their September meeting takes place on the 17th; it’s by invitation only.

From the comments:

■William Swiggart: Like the rest of the economy, angel groups have contracted somewhat, but are very much alive, and New England enjoys a vibrant constellation of them. Besides [those mentioned above], Beacon Angels meets here in Boston. Walnut and Boston Harbor meet at Babson College in Wellesley. Hub, founded in 2000, meets in Cambridge (I think). To the west, we have Boynton in Worcester and River Valley in Springfield. To our north are Granite State in Hanover and eCoast in Portsmouth, N.H., as well as Maine Angels. In Rhode Island are Cherrystone.

■Jules Pieri: Thanks for highlighting Golden Seeds, Scott. Jill Preotle and Jean Hammond are wonderful investors who really work hard for their companies, including mine! I think the world of their business savvy and deep, deep investor experience.

Two more from the Media Lab. The Media Lab at MIT has quite the track record for producing pioneering companies.

Some have been wildly successful (like the video game maker Harmonix Music Systems), some not (like nTAG Interactive, a developer of electronic badges for conference-goers), and some have fallen somewhere in the middle (Internet personalization pioneer Firefly Network.)

The two latest businesses to come from the lab are Affectiva, a Waltham company that will make wearable sensors for people with autism, and a still-unnamed start-up from robotics researcher Cynthia Breazeal in the toys/games space. Neither has been officially announced, and neither has raised funding - though Affectiva plans to begin testing its product in the market this year.

Affectiva is calling its first product the Q. It’s a kind of cloth wristband with built-in biosensors. The sensors can communicate wirelessly with a PC, and the intended users are people with autism, their parents, and the therapists who work with them. By measuring skin conductivity, the sensors can get a handle on what is happening with the wearer’s emotions.

“A kid may be lying on the floor, looking calm, and an occupational therapist is encouraging the kid to get up and get on with things,’’ says Rana El Kaliouby, one of Affectiva’s cofounders. “But when you see the data on the screen about what’s happening with his [emotions], it’s off the charts.’’

“We’re very interested in helping individuals on the autism spectrum cope and learn about social interactions and regulating emotions,’’ says El Kaliouby. But she notes that the company is also thinking about broader markets. In focus groups or market research interviews, for instance, the wearable sensor may provide useful data about a consumer’s reaction to a new product or advertising campaign.

Much more nascent is Breazeal’s new company. I’ve been told that it’s going to develop some remotely operated robotic toys, but Breazeal will only say via e-mail that she’s “doing something innovative in the transmedia space.’’ It’s not yet incorporated, and she has not started making pitches to investors. “We’re still working through the concept,’’ she writes. The company does not have a name yet.