Seattle's Top Entrepreneurs Band Together To Invest In Local Startups

Seattle has has a heck of a tech scene, but isn’t so big that the community breaks down into cliques and haters as Silicon Valley often does in the boom times. Maybe that’s why I spend so much time up here.

Like other tech hubs, successful Seattle entrepreneurs tend to become angel investors and help the next crop of companies come of age. An example: Pressplane, which recently announced a long list of Seattle angels.

Now those angels are getting a little more organized by investing in the relatively new early stage fund Founder’s Co-op. The fund was first launched last March by (now-deadpooled) Judy’s Book founders Andy Sack and Chris DeVore, and focuses on early stage investments. They typically invest $100,000 – $300,000 in an angel round. To date they’ve made three investments for a total of about $700,000.

Now Founder’s Co-Op has expanded, raising another $1.8 million from a number of well known Seattle entrepreneurs: Ben Elowitz (Wetpaint, Blue Nile), Alex Algard (WhitePages.com, CarDomain), Adam Brotman (Play Network), Andy Liu (BuddyTV) and others.

The group not only brings cash to a deal, they also bring the partner’s extended Seattle network. Sack says the fund will announce three more investments in the coming weeks. And I expect things will heat up even more, as this becomes one of the first stops for any company raising money in the Seattle area.