Intro

My name is Harris Cunningham, founder of Boulder Angels. If you’re on this mailing list, we have crossed paths in one way or another in the past few years, and there’s a good chance you’ve already heard of Boulder Angels.

If you haven’t Boulder Angels is the Alumni angel network connecting CU Boulder affiliated angel investors and startups.

I’ve started Boulder Angels Insider as a way to tell the story of Boulder Angels to a variety of local communities like CU Boulder alumni, faculty, and students, the broader Colorado VC community, and Alumni founded companies across the country.

I will share our growth as a network, what we’re doing well at, and how we’re struggling.

Everyone will have the inside scoop.

Story - The Boulder Venture Club

In January of 2022, myself and a peer of mine, Jesus Soto, decided to make a club for student entrepreneurs and future VCs, a community of people who are visionaries, optimists excited by the future of technology, and who prefer the All In podcast over most other forms of entertainment.

It started slow, as these things do, and we worked hard to organize our first meeting. We had 30 flyers around campus, and $200 of Illegal Pete’s as bait.

We had a decent turnout of about 15 people. A success in our eyes.

The second meeting comes, but this time without any food to market.

2 people show.

The third meeting comes, 5 people show.

Damn. Were we wrong about this whole thing? Do students even care about startups and VC?

We decided to keep at it regardless because we believed in what we were doing.

Fast forward one year, and we had over 50 students attending every meeting, 4 club leaders, a nationally ranking undergraduate VCIC team, and guest speakers from world class VCs and Unicorn startups.

We had also attracted the attention of Kickstart Fund, a fund new to Colorado who wanted to make a mark by enabling students on campus to invest in other students.

So there we were, one year later, running one of the fastest growing clubs on campus, and managing a $2M fund, the 2nd largest student led VC fund in the country.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve taken what I’ve learned during my years in college to go all in on Boulder Angels, the network connecting CU Boulder affiliated angels with CU Boulder affiliated startups.

When I say all in, I mean it. This is my job right now.

Boulder Angels - Why I Believe

The thesis behind Boulder Angels relies on a few core assumptions:

First, that CU Boulder Alumni, faculty, and students create legit startups. The kind that return some serious multiples that Angels and VCs want in on like… ASAP.

Second, that there are enough CU Boulder alumni angels that believe the first premise, and want to make an impact on fellow Buffs while making some serious dough in the process. We’re talking 200+ investor members.

Not everyone reading (if you’ve read this far I’ll buy you a beer) believes these two assumptions are true, but I do and will prove their truth in due time.

What to expect

You’ll hear from the Boulder Angels Insider every Wednesday, so please share this with your network, and reach out anytime to this email or [email protected].

Right now, my priority is finding our first 5 superstar Angels, so if you see the vision and have experience as an angel, let’s make it happen.

Membership is on the house.

Until next week.

-Harris