Our History
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Setting the Pace & the Standard
Our History
Founded in 2000, Desert Angels is a Tucson-based non-profit organization of accredited investors that seeks opportunities to invest in startup and early-stage companies across the United States. We have invested more than $65+ million into 165+ portfolio companies and more than a dozen Sidecar funds.
Angel investing strengthens startup companies, which leads to new jobs, new resources, and economic impact. To that end, we are launching new educational and outreach programs and actively seeking strategic partners for collaboration and sponsorship. If you are interested to learn more, we encourage you to please reach out to us by visiting our Contact Us page.
Read The Story Behind Our Success
The Desert Angels have consistently been recognized as one of the most active angel groups in the country and, since 2018, has been ranked #1 in the Southwest and in the top 5 angels organizations in the United States of America according to the ARI HALO reports for sequential years. (https://angelresourceinstitute.org/research-reports.php). The Desert Angels is a charter member of the Angel Capital Association, the trade association of angel investment groups in North America, and today represents over 270 angel investor groups and funds. To learn more about the ACA: www.angelcapitalassociation.org.
Desert Angels is also a founding member of the Angel Syndication Network, active in the Southwestern and Western United States of America for 25 years.
2000 - Planning
A small group of investors in Tucson, Arizona gathered together to invent a new group with the purpose of identifying and investing in startups and early-stage businesses in Arizona and the Southwest, USA.
2001 - Shared Objectives
Desert Angels is a founding member of the Angel Capital Association and the Angel Syndication Network, platforms that together include more than 300 similar angel groups across the USA.
2002, 2008 & 2018 - Deal Room in the Cloud
Desert Angels leads the way with deal flow management innovation to bring angel deal flow management to the cloud starting with the Gust platform (2002 – 2008) to ProSeeder (2008 to 2019) to being the first USA-based angel group to adopt the Dealum platform (2018 thru today!)
2024 and Into the Future
The Desert Angels are moving to the forefront of developing best practices for succeeding generations of angel investors. Tightening collaboration with investors upstream and downstream so that investors at each stage do not remain siloed, duplicating each other’s work. From developing new time-saving data collection and analysis tools to investor education that maintains high individual engagement, to practices that draw and keep close a startup’s management team with its entire investor list, the Desert Angels are building cooperative relationships that speed invested companies to success.
“Our goal is to build strategies or financial Plans for your business.”
Testimonials
What Our Portfolio Companies Say
Across our large and growing portfolio of investments, we hear a common note of appreciation for early-stage investment, mentoring, and support from Desert Angels.
“Desert Angels is the cornerstone of for Reglagene. We owe much of our success to the investment and support given to our company by Desert Angels since our startup and continuing their mentorship, guidance and investment into our current stage.”
“Many members of the DA share our passion and see the potential for gene therapy to transform healthcare and liberate patients from chronic and incurable diseases. Their investments have helped us grow this company to what it is today. We truly hope Calimmune’s work will be life-changing for the people we plan to serve and the investors that supported us.”.