BitAngels starts with 60 angels

Over 60 investors come together to start BitAngels, the first multi-city angel network and incubator created to invest exclusively in cryptocurrency startups. Led by Engine.co founder David A. Johnston, SocialRadius and Marketwire founder Michael Terpin and angel investor Sam Onat Yilmaz, BitAngels is a distributed network of angels and entrepreneurs that came together a few days after the Bitcoin 2013 Conference.

At the conference Terpin noticed that while venture capital firms had begun to make big investments in Bitcoin startups, no group of angel investors — who are usually the first to give promising early-stage companies a financial boost — had risen up to support Bitcoin startups. By the end of the conference, there were 50 angels onboard, spread across Austin, San Francisco, and New York.

Johnston:  Sunday morning I hacked together the first Bit Angels website, made a post on Reddit about a 12:00 noon meeting and a quick announcement at the conference about doing a first meeting of the Bit Angels. I invited 6 people and more than 20 showed up to the first meeting. Now more than 35 people have joined the group as of this posting. I’ve volunteered to be the Executive Director and things are moving fast. If you are an experienced entrepreneur and have a few BTC to invest come join us.

The angel network pooled together about $6.7 million in Bitcoin, which it will invest in $20K chunks.