01 Mar IU Angel Network Secures Five Corporate Sponsors

Founders and Funders Network Continues to Deliver, Evolve

Bloomington, Indiana—The growing network of impactful angel investors and founders that make up the IU Angel Network is attracting recognition and value from other entities in the startup space. Five industry sponsors—Bridge Bank, InnovateMap, Carbon Group, CliftonLarsonAllen and Perkins Coie—have all signed on to contribute funding and time to sustain the work of the Angel Network.

In part, this support is as much the product of the IU Ventures’ mission to create momentum among the IU community as it is a means to advance the mission. Each sponsor boasts at least one IU affiliation on its team.

IU alumnus Ryan Dammeyer is the Regional Leader for Bridge Bank in Chicago. Bridge Bank is a division of Western Alliance Bank that was founded in Silicon Valley in 2001 with the express purpose of helping small and mid-size businesses realize their growth ambitions.

“We’re proud to partner with Indiana University Angel Network as a lead sponsor of this exciting new ecosystem of student entrepreneurs, faculty and advisors,” said Ryan Dammeyer, senior managing director in Bridge Bank’s Chicago-based Technology Banking Group. “The momentum of innovation and talent from IU is inspiring, and we look forward to being a part of the many successes yet to come from the IU Angel Network.”

Bridge Bank has signed on to be a major sponsor of the new Hoosier25 program, which will identity and spotlight the top 25 IU alumni entrepreneurs at a special ceremony in 2021. The company will also sponsor the new Crimson Pitch Day, an opportunity for IU alumni working in venture capital and private equity to hear from some of the most interesting startups coming from campus and from alumni founders worldwide.

IU alumnus Shayne Veramallay is a leader at two of the sponsors. Veramallay is co-founder & managing partner at Carbon Investment Group, a global sustainable development holding company committed to social impact investing that eliminates the distinctions between profit and purpose. Carbon Group will be integral to the Angel Network’s 2021 programming focused on global entrepreneurship, achieved through additional partnership with the IU Alumni Association and the IU Office of the Vice President for International Affairs.

Veramallay is also Director of Startup & Investor Services at Perkins Coie, a leading international law firm providing corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property and regulatory legal advice to some of the world’s leading innovators in both public and private sectors.

“The IU Angel Network represents a chance to engage with a driven set of individuals across the country looking for opportunities to invest in talented alumni,” said Veramallay. “My network is comprised of primarily institutional investors, but there are pockets of innovation throughout our country that are untapped.  It’s time IU gets on the map for entrepreneurship outside of Bloomington,” he concluded. “I want to be part of creating a natural extension of the IU umbrella around business, liberal arts, SPEA, media, and science, along with the great leadership the school has instilled in the team developing this initiative.”

Where Perkins Coie has the legal side covered, Innovatemap supports the product development side. Services like user and market research, branding, product management and marketing, and user experience design make this collaborative agency a powerhouse for any company to multiply its potential. Christian Beck, Executive Partner at Innovatemap, is an IU alumnus.

CliftonLarsonAllen brings over 120 nationwide accounting offices to the network with expertise in general accounting, valuation, and a wide scope of advisory services.  Their experienced team is already engaged in provided educational resources to both IU affiliated founders as well as the Angel Network members themselves.  Jim Schultz, Director at CLA, is an IU alumnus.

“The desire of all these sponsors to participate both financially and with time is allowing us to add many new resources to support our founders,” said Jason Whitney, Executive Director of the IU Angel Network and Associate Vice President of IU Ventures. “Each are proven industry leaders helping to provide strategic guidance to our portfolio companies as those startups continue to grow.”

Not only will these partnerships help the IU Angel Network better-serve its portfolio companies and angels today, but they also represent exponential opportunity for the future, grounded in the IU network. “The really great thing here is all of these companies are IU affiliated,” Whitney said.  “These partnerships are an extension of the IU Founders and Funders Network which is managed by the IU Ventures team. And they will continue to enable that extension as we expand into more regions using the regional offices of these valued sponsors for support.”