Decision Sciences

"The history (of Chicago) is the old stockyards, big business and commerce," said Jeffrey Sohl, director of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. "Hyde Park Angels is ... an important step toward developing an entrepreneurial culture in Chicago."

Funding from angel investors, or high-net-worth individuals who provide capital to young companies, fell 30% to $9.1 billion in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier. That figure is expected to remain flat for 2010, according to Jeffrey Sohl, director of University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research, which tracks the data.

Funding from angel investors, or high-net-worth individuals who provide capital to young companies, fell 30% to $9.1 billion in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier. That figure is expected to remain flat for 2010, according to Jeffrey Sohl, director of University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research, which tracks the data.

Its 2:30 p.m. on a weekday, and University of New Hampshire professor Venky Venkatachalam is...on vacation and far away from his office computer, but the chair of UNH's Decision Sciences Department is surfing the Web, reading the newspaper, keeping in touch with friends from around the globe and responding to e-mails with the touch of a button on his Apple iPhone.

If you're exploring the idea of raising angel investment capital in 2010, join us on January 21^st for an angel forum targeting the key information you'll need to be successful. You'll hear from Jeff Sohl, Director of the Center for Venture Research at UNH, and two leading New England angel investors, Mike Marsh and Jean Hammond.

Total U.S. angel investments in 2008 reached $19.2 billion, a 26.2 percent drop from 2007, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of NH in Durham.

Nationwide, angels invested $9.1 billion in the first half of the year, down 27 percent from the amount they invested in the first half of 2008, according to the University of New Hampshire Center for Venture Research.

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Jeffrey Sohl, head of the Center for Venture Research Institute at the Whittemore School of Business at the University of New Hampshire, released a year-end report citing a 26.2 percent decline in angel investment in the United States in 2008, down from $26 billion to $19.2 billion.

Angel investors pulled back in the first half of 2009, although the overall market experienced a slight increase in the number of investments, according to the Angel Market Analysis for the first and second quarters of 2009 released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.