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Angels by the Sea
By Lou Pambianco July 21, 2017 Good news for UCSC and Santa Cruz! The long-standing need for an incubator that provides researchers at UCSC a wet lab for cost effective research and commercialization of intellectual property has been met. In March, Lou Pambianco and Judy Owen applied for and were granted approval by UCSC to set up a non-profit wet lab for innovation and breakthrough solutions in genomics and more. Startup Sandbox was born. Startup Sandbox Incubator is modeled after existing wet labs in the UC system. An example is www.qb3at953.com, which is the life science wet lab associated with UC San Francisco. In the last three years, companies that have utilized this wet lab have raised over $1.2 Billion in funding. Stay tuned. Startup Sandbox Incubator is a separate entity from ABTS and will provide deal flow to ABTS as the wet lab is completed and research tenants create breakthrough technologies and solutions in precision medicine and more. By Keri Waters CEO and Co-founder, Buoy Labs (previously known as Calliope)  Big News about Buoy
I’m honored to announce that Buoy — the first complete smart home device for managing household water use — has won gold at the Edison Design Awards in New York! We are so proud of the work of our excellent design partners, Herbst Produkt, in bringing Buoy to life and helping us develop a brand that says exactly what we want to say. When we started this company, nearly two years ago, my co-founders and I knew we wanted to build a company that would demystify and simplify household water for real people. We know that the water landscape is changing. Here in the US, we get daily news reports about the increasingly dire state of our water infrastructure. Our own Hilary Bryant nicely summarizes why the water bill is rising faster than any other household bill, and why we’ll continue to pay more, even as we have to find ways to meet ever more stringent conservation targets. We know this isn’t all bad news, though. Water is the ONLY 100% renewable resource. All water ends up recycled — remember learning about the water cycle? The water that you put into the sewer makes its way through water treatment, eventually back into our waterways, and out to sea. There, evaporation forms clouds, which drift over land and distribute clean water back to the earth in the form of precipitation. It all ends up somewhere — the hard part is moving it to where people need it. That’s where technology can help. Unlike every previous time in history, when a community well running dry or a river suddenly changing direction meant that the human settlement would have to move, now we have tools to keep water flowing to homes, wherever they already exist. The only questions are how much we need to move, and how much it’ll cost. We believe the first steps are:
We knew we wanted to focus on water’s end users: real people. Families. There are certainly other water customers we could address: agricultural users, businesses, etc. We believe, however, that we can’t have an informed conversation with our government about how to make durable changes in the ways we source, allocate, price, and deliver water, unless we start with the basics: what does one person, or one family, need every day? How does that fit into the big picture? We originally chose a name for our company that came from the Greek muses, and also was the name of a steam-based musical instrument — Calliope. It’s a beautiful word. Euphonious, even. Once we developed our product, though, it became clear that only one name really fit. We worked with Scot Herbst and his team to simplify a big idea and an advanced set of technologies into a single, sleek product that would look stylish and work well in any modern home. His beautiful cylindrical design immediately caused us to think of buoys — those signposts in waterways that give you information and lead you safely home. We realized that the word Buoy said everything we wanted — about our product and our company. So today I’m also thrilled to announce that we’ve gone all-in on Buoy as our brand. We officially renamed the company to Buoy Labs, and will continue to build beautiful, simple, stylish products that help every homeowner manage their household water bill and water infrastructure. Our mission is to help every family continue to enjoy clean, abundant water, wherever they live. Please join us over at buoywater.com to learn more about what we’re doing, and to pre-order your Buoy, which will ship later this summer!  December 2, 2016
Angels by the Sea portfolio company, In-Board was featured as one of the presenting companies for The December 2nd edition of Shark Tank. In the episode, Inboard co-founder and CEO Ryan Evans, Chris Haley (CFO), Dave Evans (VP of Marketing) squared off against sharks Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec, Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, and guest shark Chris Sacca! This was a huge opportunity for Inboard as it was the first prime time viewing of an electric skateboard on a major TV network. The critically-acclaimed and award-winning "Shark Tank" regularly attracts millions of viewers every week. In the episode, InBoard presented the key features of the InBoard electric skateboard such as it in-wheel electric motors as well as demonstrating how easy it is to use by actually having one of the Sharks try it out. The end result was that after some tough and slightly dramatic negotiations, two of the Sharks went together to commit to a $750,000 investment in the company. Santa Cruz, CA 5, September, 2016 — Angels by the Sea announced the latest round of investments by their members in 3 ventures including InBoard, LifeAid, and Snap EDA and have 3 more under review. According to Judy Owen, Angels by the Sea co-founder and President, “We're very excited to have the opportunity to work with and invest in these outstanding companies.” “These new companies demonstrate the strength of our central coast area as a center for entrepreneurial activity.”
These 3 companies represent the first round of investments made by members from a pool of over 20 different companies. Angels by the Sea members had the opportunity to hear presentations from these companies over the last 9 months and then work together and share expertise in closely evaluating each company's potential, viability and strengths. Additionally, a number of members have also been working directly with the portfolio companies, sharing technical, marketing and executive experience. According organization co-founder Jason Book, “the collaboration among our members as well as with the entrepreneurs is a unique strength of our angel group.” The most recent investment round by Angels by the Sea includes: InBoard (www.inboardtechnology.com) – InBoard is an innovative electric skateboard company which incorporates unique in-wheel motors. Their award winning product, the M1™ Electric Skateboard. is transforming not only how an electric skateboard works, but how it feels. Their technology introduces riders to a whole new experience. LifeAID (www.lifeaidbevco.com) - LifeAID produces 5 specially-formulated low-sugar, all natural, gluten-free formula high-value natural supplement beverages, as well as a protein/carb food pouch, each designed to boost performance and speed recovery for people pursuing active healthy lifestyles. SnapEDA (www.snapeda.com) – SnapEDA is the developer of an innovative on-line CAD library and platform that manages electronics CAD data for electronics engineers and PCB designers. The platform provides free and premium access to over 100,000 PCB footprints and schematic symbols as well as millions of orderable parts, data sheets, specs, pricing, and availability. The platform also features the ability to export to all major design tools. |
Jennifer MajorDirector of Member Communications Archives
August 2017
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