Growth Stories is a new HPA blog series focused on profiling what happens to our portfolio companies after they raise venture capital. This first edition focuses on The Eastman Egg Company’s latest expansion. When Hunter Swartz first landed on the fast-casual breakfast concept in 2014, he started by opening a food truck. Two years later, […]
As part of HPA’s efforts to build opportunities for growth and success across our portfolio and our partners, we connect them to one another to drive results. We connected our portfolio company Xaptum with one of our partners, Westcon-Comstor, to do just that. Almost a year later, we spoke with Steve Garrou, EVP of Corporate […]
When a founding team starts a business, the members have to ask themselves a critical question: how should we make sure they divide the value of the company fairly? There are many ways to do this, but often the simplest is to structure the initial shares as vesting. Vesting shares means an individual does not […]
We launched the third program in our Entrepreneurial Education Series, “Fund Your Startup through Corporate Sales, Partners, and Investment” on September 21st with our partner 1871. The event brought together experienced corporate investors Steve Garrou (Executive Vice President, Westcon), Reese Schroeder (Managing Director, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital), and Lily Yeung (Director of Corporate Development, Molex), the […]
The Hyde Park Angels “New Investment Series” profiles our most recent investments by examining the investment process and the individual company’s future trajectory from two perspectives: the portfolio company’s CEO and the HPA leader who made the deal happen. This month we invested in Quikly, a Detroit-based digital marketing platform for retailers, in a Series […]
At the early-stages, entrepreneurs are concerned with a host of problems and uncertainties surrounding the development of their company from how to hire talent to what it takes to get that product built and sold to customers. But overwhelmingly, we see entrepreneurs struggle to understand how the early-stage investment process works, and what they need […]
In a resource-strapped, lean, and agile environment like a startup, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that you are just as vulnerable to business risks as other types of companies. Anything from an employee slip and fall to a security breach can turn into a major liability. For a startup, it’s […]
As an entrepreneur, you often have more control over investment timelines than you know in the early stages. You can drive the discussions and the timing by being prepared, anticipating commonly asked questions, and managing the investment process as professionally and strategically as you manage your business. Specifically, by actively preparing for a fundraise before […]
At Hyde Park Angels, we spend a lot of time working with our portfolio companies on developing and executing communications strategies that help them achieve their unique goals, whether they are attracting new partners, generating leads, or launching a new product in the market. With over forty portfolio companies, we have worked on a variety […]
When you’re running an early-stage company, the worst thing you can do is hire the wrong person. It’s a waste of time and money, which are an entrepreneur’s two most valuable and most limited assets. Conversely, a good hire can help hit major milestones, create new market opportunities, and reach inflection points that make or […]
