First Angel Network Closing Down After 14 Years Of Funding Atlantic Canadian Startups
First Angel Network is shutting down after 14 years of channelling the money of wealthy investors into Atlantic Canadian startups.
As first reported by Betakit, Co-Founders Ross Finlay and Brian Lowe notified their friends and contacts on Friday that the investment group would cease operations on March 31. The move comes a little more than a year after one of its portfolio companies launched a lawsuit against FAN and others. Though Lowe and Finlay believe the suit is no longer active, they admit that the case had an impact on the group.
“Our board felt it was time,” said Lowe in an interview on Sunday. “Our contract with ACOA [the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency] ended last June 30, and now . . . we would like to see other angel groups grow up in the Atlantic region.”
FAN was a trailblazing organization in that Finlay and Lowe were raising awareness about angel investing early in the century, before most Atlantic Canadians had ever heard of angels or startups. One of their first investments was with drug discovery company Immunovaccine Technologies, now IMV Inc., a publicly listed company with a market value of $241 million.
Read more about this story in Entrevestor.