Benefits to Members

Membership in Beacon Angels provides high net worth investors with access to a steady flow of screened, early-stage, privately held investment opportunities. Participation in our group investments allows members to spread risk among multiple start-up companies, and to share some of the costs of initiating and monitoring them.

Together, we negotiate the terms of our investments, and then conduct ongoing review their progress. Members having an appropriate base of experience and expertise are encouraged to add value to our investments through consulting engagements and by sharing contacts and opportunities among our portfolio companies.

We meet the second Tuesday morning of every month of the year. Often, this meeting is held at the Union Club on Beacon Hill in Boston. Screening meetings usually take place via conference call the Thursday afternoon 12 days prior to each meeting.

Criteria for Membership

Beacon Angels seeks members with the financial wherewithal to make illiquid, long term investments in private companies. First, at a minimum, a member must be an "accredited investor," defined by the SEC as owning assets of $1 million or more, or having a high income. More than that , a member must be able to tie up a significant amount of wealth in each company until a desired exit event that may occur, if at all, in seven or more years. And many-if not all-companies will return to Beacon Angels after a first round with legitimate needs for more capital in the range of 100-200% of our original investment. Hence, the ability of each member to follow up his investment with more capital is a must in order to avoid dilution.

Secondly, Beacon Angels members must have a willingness to attend meetings, and to contribute time to "duly diligent" investigations of potential investment targets, and to monitor and report back to the group on the status of certain of our portfolio companies.

Thirdly, we seek members having an interest in and expertise in the management and growth of start-up companies. The companies we invest in often need not only capital, but guidance on how to grow and, in certain instances have entered into valued consulting relationships with our members.

Lastly, we seek individuals that will be respectful of others' time, and who display a congenial demeanor and fun-loving attitude in order to help keep our group interactions enjoyable.

In sum, Beacon Angels members have:

1. Access to significant, investible assets,
2. Time and energy to contribute to Beacon Angels activities, and
3. Expertise in and interest in growing companies; and
4. A congenial approach to group interactions.

Please contact membership@beaconangels.com to learn more about joining.

John Blyzinskyj Thomas H. Brantley Bruce Buckland Don Burrer Allan Huntley Alexander S. Kelso, Jr. Leon Liebman Eliane S. Markoff Norman Meisner Francis H. Murphy

Erik V. Pedersen Craig Randall Dola H. Stemberg Michael F. Sullivan William F. Swiggart Michael Vitale Dan Von Kohorn Jeffrey Witherell Douglas Zaccaro

John Blyzinskyj

John Blyzinskyj is Divisional SVP and General Manager for Patni Computer Services, an IT and professional services company. In this role he has global responsibility for the Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution Industry Business Units.

Prior to his current role John was EVP of a software and services company serving the media industry. Mr. Blyzinskyj had previously spent 12 years with IBM Corporation in Europe and the US where he held General Management roles with P&L responsibility for service and product businesses up to $700M in annual revenue. This included a number of successful business turnaround situations.

Prior to IBM John held marketing and business development positions with Motorola and HP, and as an investment banker with Bank of America in the US and Europe. He has led several global organizations, which have included significant first hand experience of conducting and managing businesses in Japan, China, India, the US, and many European countries.

In addition to his time at multinational organizations John also advises small, rapidly growing technology companies, with their business plans and the launching of new market offerings.

He holds a BSc in Electronic Engineering from Kings College, University of London, and a MBA from the Cranfield Institute of Technology.

Thomas H. Brantley

Mr. Brantley is a partner in the Boston law firm of Rubin and Rudman, LLP, with a primary concentration during his 34 years of experience in tax and other areas of the law having a major tax component. He is also a CPA, and worked for five years in the Boston tax department of Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young). He has had extensive involvement with the tax and tax-related needs of start-up and early-stage companies, as well as those of individual and venture capital investors. Mr. Brantley received his B.A. degree from Yale College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Bruce Buckland

Mr. Buckland is President and CEO of Mallory Ventures, Inc., which oversees holding company investments in a diverse group of service businesses primarily in the area of managed information technology services. His background includes 25 years of experience in inter-application communications, operations monitoring software, communications, and data center operations. Prior to joining Mallory Ventures Mr. Buckland was president and CEO of Inforonics, Inc. at Inforonics and later at Mallory he accomplished 7 small acquisitions since 1998. He was founder and CEO of Buckland Associates, Inc., a company that created and marketed operations monitoring software. He also has held several management and consulting positions in communications and data center operations for AT&T, New England Telephone, Ameritech, and NYNEX/New York Telephone.

Don Burrer

Mr Burrer's career centers on far infrared imaging systems and their semiconductor detectors. He was a founder and originating President of Inframetrics which developed, manufactured, and marketed a broad line of infrared imaging instruments for both commercial and government applications. The company was recently acquired by FLIR Systems and now operates as their Boston facility. Mr. Burrer received his BSEE from MIT and MSEE from University of Cincinnati. He has been a Beacon Angels member since its inception.

Allan Huntley

Mr. Huntley's career has spanned a number of industries that include software development, management consulting, litigation support, real estate and travel. Allan is a founder and CEO of Abacus Travel, Inc., an INC 500 company, that serves approximately 450 companies throughout the U.S.

Alexander S. Kelso, Jr. [Resume]

Mr. Kelso has been an entrepreneur, business executive and management consultant for twenty-five years. Today, he is building houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In the early part of the decade, he bought, raised capital, built and sold a software firm. For start-up companies he has worn executive, marketing and production hats, and developed business plans. As a consultant he worked with executive teams of financial services, information processing, agriculture, industrial and consumer products companies in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Before entering business Lex was a professor of Finance and Economics at the Boston University School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T., a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of London, an A.B. from Princeton University, and is a Certified Management Accountant and Certified Financial Manager.

Leon Liebman

Succesful vc and private equity investor seeking opportunities in the US, Great Britain and Sweden. Earlier stage opportunities are of particular interest. Also board involvement with equity incentives. Substantial operating experience in a range of business areas.

Eliane S. Markoff

Eliane Markoff has over 20 years of experience in the high tech industry primarily as a marketing executive building bridges between Research &Development and Sales & Marketing. She collaborated with researchers and engineers to initiate innovative business processes and to develop programs and tools to leverage technical intellect across a company. Eliane is also very involved in healthcare. Her passion is on patient safety and non-invasive diagnoses and treatments.

As CEO of Markoff Consulting, Eliane has reviewed and critiqued business plans for start-up companies sponsored by the Boston-Haifa Life Sciences Initiative. She was on a panel for Best Practices for start-up companies at the 2007 Annual Boston-Haifa Life Sciences Initiative.

Eliane taught undergraduate and graduate students Organizational Behavior and Team Management. She was recently invited to join the senior management team of a start-up medical device company working closely with medical professionals, VCs and Clinical Research Organizations

Eliane is also the co-founder of The Rachel Molly Markoff Foundation, dedicated to helping families cope with childhood cancer (www.artingiving.org). Eliane served on the Board of Overseers at Newton Wellesley Hospital and the Board Directors of The Brain Tumor Society.

Norman Meisner

Mr. Meinser has worked for nine startups as VP of sales or VP of business development yielding five acquisitions and one IPO. His expertise is in the areas of enterprise software, security and data communications. Most recently, he served as the VP of business development at Authentica, acquired by EMC in early 2006. He has been a private angel investor since 1998 and he led the angel round at Lumigent Technologies, where he served on the Board for 5 years. He works with his investments to help develop sales and partnering strategies.

Francis H. Murphy

Retired financial executive whose career includes positions in manufacturing, engineering and management, international operations and as Chief Financial Officer of two small public companies. These positions were with Boeing, Gillette, Costar Corporation, Corning and Biopure Corporation. He received a BSIE and a BA from Rutgers University in 1960 and an MBA from Boston University in 1972.

Erik Pedersen

Mr. Pedersen is a retired entrepreneur, having started several businesses that provide application software for the property/casualty and group health insurance industries. Currently he serves as a mentor to management teams of high tech startups in the Boston area, focusing on the development of the business and funding plans. Mr. Pedersen has a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from MIT and a masters degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Craig Randall

Mr. Randall's background is in software technology startups. He co-founded Availl in 2002, and after three years of consecutive rapid growth and continuous profitability, sold it in late 2006. He was VP Marketing at Connected Corporation from 1999 to 2002 and VP Marketing at Omtool from 1995 to 1999 (during which time it IPO'd). Prior to Omtool he was VP Marketing & Indirect Sales for Racal Datacom. Mr. Randall holds a BS EE from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from Harvard.

Dola H. Stemberg

Dola H. Stemberg has served at various times as either an executive or director of marketing for The Massachusetts Office of Tourism, Putnam Investments, Fidelity Investments, Stride Rite, Polaroid, Gillette, SSC&B Advertising and Clairol. Mrs. Stemberg serves on the boards of numerous charitable institutions, and is a member of several area clubs, including the Union Club of Boston. Dola graduated from Vassar College and received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Michael F. Sullivan

Mr. Sullivan was with Segue Software since 2000, serving in a number of key financial management roles. He was initially North American Controller for Segue, then was appointed Corporate Controller and, in 2004, was promoted to Vice-President of Finance. Overall, Mr. Sullivan brings 17 years of accounting and financial management experience to his role as CFO. He has worked within several different industries, serving in increasingly responsible roles such as Cost Accounting Manager, Corporate Controller and CFO. Prior to Segue, he was with companies such as Kortec, Bixby International and C.R. Bard. Mr. Sullivan has a BA degree in economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Northeastern University.

William F. Swiggart

Link to biography

Michael S. Vitale

Mr. Vitale is the current president and CFO of Puritan Fish Co., Inc. a Boston based international seafood company, and the current treasurer of the New England Seafood Producers Association. He served as past president of the Boston Fisheries Association. Mr. Vitale received his B.S. in Accounting from Bentley College.

Daniel Von Kohorn [Homepage]

Mr. Von Kohorn founded Beacon Angels along with William Swiggart and Alexander Kelso, and leads the screening committee. He is a VP and portfolio manager at VKRA where he manages a commodities fund, is a member of the investment committee for two global equity funds, and publishes an investment commentary. He is also Director of Technology Investments for Mediatech Capital Partners. He graduated from Princeton University in 1997 (A.B./Economics, Cert/Applied and Computational Mathematics) and worked in the Applied Research Group of JP Morgan Investments where he built asset allocation models implemented for the allocation of $4.2 billion. Dan participated in the development of an internal hedge fund strategy and taught internal classes on fixed income analytics, derivatives pricing, and asset allocation for the JP Morgan Private Client Group. In 1999, Dan founded ThoughtStore, Inc., an electronic open-market for patent licenses which was acquired in September, 2000. He is a member of the U.S. Secret Service NY Electronic Crimes Task Force.

Jeffrey Witherell

Douglas Zaccaro

Mr. Zaccaro, CPA, CMA (Certified Managerial Accountant) is 58. He is CFO of ManageSoft Corp., a Boston based software company that produces software for asset management. He was formerly CFO at a publicly held software company, and he has worked in the public and private sectors in various accounting, finance and management positions in software and manufacturing. He has lived and worked aboard for several years and is presently semi-retired. Mr. Zaccaro received his BSA from Bentley and MBA from Babson with a Masters Certificate in Personal Financial Planning from Bentley and a Multi Nation Marketing Certificate from Harvard in Switzerland.

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