Fresno State’s Water, Energy and Technology (WET) Center is recruiting up to 15 angel investors to mentor and potentially fund 10 early-stage startups through its new Valley Ventures Angel Academy program.
The application and program are free for all participants.
The program aims to connect early-stage startups with angel investors who can provide mentorship and potentially invest up to $50,000, according to WET Center Executive Director Eric Hadden.
“The ideal investors have either done this before, or worked in a bigger firm, but they understand what it takes to get to a certain revenue milestone, and the investors are willing to help the them,” Hadden said.
He said interest in the economic success of the Central Valley is another aspect in the recruitment for investors because it is difficult to retain talent locally when founders can easily gain access to capital in other cities like the Bay Area.
“We lose the economic activity that comes from inhabiting an entrepreneur, building a business right here in our backyard,” Hadden said. “And that’s the kind of thing that we want to prevent from happening further in the future.”
Building a network of Valley investors
Hadden said an angel investor group in the Central Valley used to exist 12 years ago, but had disappeared because of COVID, with investors passing or moving onto other things.
A crucial part of angel investor groups is having a number of business proposals and investment opportunities available, known as deal flow.
“You cannot invest in these companies if you don’t have a consistent pool to see and select from, and that can candidly be the hardest part,” Hadden said. “Fortunately for us, that is the thing that the WET Center does every single — talk to entrepreneurs and founders, not just from here in the Valley, but across the world.”
The program is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury through the California Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA), with the purpose of preparing small businesses and entrepreneurs to take on investment capital for the first time, according to Hadden.
Part of the grant mandates bringing investors from the eight counties the WET Center serves: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus and Tulare.
“It makes more sense regionally; you need investors that understand who we are, the resources that we have, the problems that we face in the Valley because a lot of these are our problems,” Hadden said. “Entrepreneurs are solving problems that are right here in our backyard.”
One of these problems is how to improve agricultural production for farmworkers.
Gather, a tech company based in New Jersey, aims to solve this with autonomous robots able to carry tools for farmworkers.
Suma Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Gather, runs a technical team based in Merced and was seeking opportunities for product market fit. Hadden connected with Reddy at agricultural events.
“You really have to kick over a lot of rocks before you find somebody that goes, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll take a shot on that,’” Hadden said. “Because it is a testament to how delayed agriculture technology is as an ecosystem in terms of supporting these technologies.”
Reddy’s company is one of the 10 diverse founders and companies within the program.
Preparing startups for investment
Founders will build their pitches, understand their business, what their team composition is, where the market stands and how they will build funds and bring it all in their pitch deck from Oct. 15 to Nov. 5.
“In all likelihood, there are going to be some entrepreneurs that have never pitched before,” Hadden said. “And the idea is to get everybody to a stage at the end of this program where they are proficient in pitching, but they really understand their business.”
Angel investors will undergo orientation to build expectations, grasp how to comfortably invest, develop an investment approach and learn to assess investment opportunities, starting in January 2027.
“We are seeing if there is an opportunity for sparks to fly and for them to cut a check and invest in this company, or this founder,” Hadden said, referring to an angel investor with a high net worth or interest in helping early-stage companies. “And it may ultimately not lead to a check.”
Pitches to investors can fail, and that is okay because it helps entrepreneurs understand these are the type of conversations they need to go through, according to Hadden.
“Angel investors will have the skill set to be able to evaluate these pitches and do their own due diligence and really know the likelihood of success or failure of this particular company, and more importantly, this founder,” Hadden said. “You don’t invest in the idea, you’re investing in the founder themselves.”
Hadden said he would like to see a few investment wins from the program, even if they are small, as it helps to remove the fear of investing into companies that may fail.
“So if we can demonstrate these wins to the local investing community, not only is there a social and economic good in doing this, but there really is a strong potential to see a return on your capital,” Hadden said.
New facility to support entrepreneurs
The WET Center is getting a new facility called “The Forge,” where founders and companies can prototype.
“For instance, if you have an idea that you want to commercialize, you could do it at ‘The Forge’ and you could get money and you could go out and actually build this business,” Hadden said.
This facility is funded at $4.36 million, as part of a $48.5 million investment by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Jobs First Council to support job creation and regional economic growth across eight regions and 33 counties. The facility will open in about 24 months, according to Hadden.
To apply as an angel investor, visit the WET Center’s Valley Ventures Angel Academy Angel Investor Intake Form.
