The Southwest Angel Network has invested in SHYFT Power Systems, which believes that the future of energy in emerging markets is distributed energy resources.
SHYFT is building IoT and software to enable and intelligently manage solar, generator, inverter and utility power. Their solutions help a customer’s energy solutions work together seamlessly in order to help save money and make life easier.
From the Desk of Bob Bridge
Our network thinks about impact in two ways.
An important impact goal for our network is funding companies that are working to address serious societal challenges, such as improving education or healthcare outcomes or protecting the environment, or empowering or improving the lives of disadvantaged people.
We look for companies whose primary business mission is clearly focused on having an impact, and where the impact is not a secondary result or a sideline.
We ask the companies for as much evidence as possible that their product or service offerings actually do have a measurable impact and goes beyond “isn’t that a nice idea”.
It is natural for me, and all of us, to feel most comfortable around others who are most like ourselves and to feel at home in an environment similar to the environment in which we were raised.
As a result, when those with wealth and power, the overclass, all belong to one demographic group, wealth and power tend to get easily shared with others in that group. Such sharing is a natural result and does not necessarily reflect a deliberate strategy to be exclusive or limiting.
Those who possess wealth and power may not have experienced the day-to-day and life-long challenges faced by the underclass, and it easy for the overclass to assume that the same rules that allowed the overclass to be successful in life will allow anyone to achieve similar success. That is not how it normally works for the underclass.
Our network believes that all individuals should have the support needed to reach their full potential. We recognize that glass ceilings exit, and sometimes even concrete ceilings exist and that all entrepreneurs need to be treated with respect and provided encouragement. We welcome under-represented founders into a thoughtful and constructive discussion about their business.
By diversity, we think of those who have historically been disadvantaged in terms of receiving funding, possibly because they are women or people of color. We strive to support startup teams with under-represented C-level founders.
Diversity is neither required nor sufficient to receive funding from us. That said, half of our funding to date has been to teams with an under-represented C-level founder.
And we think about supporting diversity more broadly than just funding companies. For example, we mentor Title 1 high school students in entrepreneurship by partnering with the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Superstar program, and we provide a college scholarship to a student in that annual program.
The podcast series “Investor Connect with Hall Martin” helps startup and investors connect for funding. In this podcast, Bob shares his advice for impact investing. According to him, you don’t look for the unicorns, but rather focus on two factors, the ability to provide a financial return, but more importantly, having the companies convince you that they positively affect societal or environmental problems.
Listen to the podcast
The Southwest Angel Network is pleased to announce that over half of its angels have invested in CURB.
CURB provides a home energy monitoring system that helps homeowners to take control of energy use by providing a system that plugs directly into the electrical circuit breaker panel, providing real-time data on energy consumption and production, allowing:
CURB users have been able to reduce energy consumption by up to 20%
The Southwest Angel Network’s Executive Director, Bob Bridge, was invited to serve on a panel at the Impact Investing Conference held on May 24th at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. The conference was organized by the Texas Impact Alliance, a statewide organization working to scale social and environmental impact in the state of Texas by uniting stakeholders from the private sector, academia, public sector, 
and finance. Bob discussed how the social-impact of mission-driven start-up companies is measured and reported.
The Southwest Angel Network is pleased to announce an investment in Brobe International.
Brobe is a thoughtful, empathetic company that designs high quality, functional, products for humans affected by health challenges. By listening intently, empathizing authentically, and generously supporting patients and caregivers, they continually find opportunities and to develop items that offer comfort & dignity. The company wants to transform the experience of recovery and empower every individual by equipping them with comfort and confidence.
The Southwest Angel Network is pleased to announce an investment in Yotta Solar.
Yotta Solar harnesses our Sun’s abundant but intermittent energy simply and efficiently, which has been up to now a major challenge. SolarLEAF™ represents a step change in storage technology with the battery and power electronics mounted behind solar PV modules using existing panel installation cables and procedures, allowing storage to be added to solar in minutes.
The SolarLEAF™ is a battery storage device whose biggest value is reducing the soft costs of designing, installing, and maintaining an energy storage system compared to traditional centralized systems. And the SolarLEAF can passively control its battery temperature to optimize battery performance and operating life.
The SolarLEAF is optimized for commercial rooftop installation.
In support of its social-impact mission, the Southwest Angel Network has pledged to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech community by taking actions outlined in the startup diversity and inclusion pledge.
The Startup Diversity and Inclusion Pledge is being launched in Austin, Texas in 2019 with plans to expand nationally.
Diversity and inclusion matter for a wide variety of reasons, including that it is better for business, increases investment returns, lowers volatility, and drives innovation. And while female founders receive less venture capital funding than their male counterparts, there’s data that shows that female founders outperform their male peers.
The core idea of the Startup Diversity and Inclusion Pledge is that startups will pledge to take a few concrete measures in the way they operate their company that should, over time, increase the number of women, people of color and people who identify as LGBTQ within their ranks.
The centerpiece of the pledge is The Walker Rule, which is inspired by the NFL’s Rooney Rule. The Rooney Rule requires every NFL team to interview at least one minority candidate for head coach vacancies. In the years following its implementation in 2003, the number of minorities hired as head-coaches dramatically increased.
The Walker Rule is named after Madam C. J. Walker (1867–1919) who was America’s first female self-made millionaire. She was an African-American entrepreneur, hair care industry pioneer, philanthropist, patron of the arts, political activist and one of the 20th century’s most influential businesswomen. That’s unbelievably impressive given she was born only two years after the civil war ended and built her company during the height of the Jim Crow era.
Bob Bridge, Executive Director of our network, will be speaking at the annual conference of the ACA that will be held in Chicago at the end of April. Bob will be leading a session entitled, “Measuring Impact … and Impact Results”. The session will explore how to bring the same level of quantitative analysis to measuring social-impact results as is used to measure business results. And how is that level of rigor beneficial to impact investors?
The Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce works to brighten the future of disadvantaged students through their Superstars Competition, which teaches entrepreneurial skills to students and which culminates in a city-wide competition for students from Austin’s five Title 1 high schools.
Heaven Leigh Contreras being award the Social-impact Scholarship
The Southwest Angel Network is involved in the competition in three ways: