Sand Hill Angels invests in early stage companies in the following areas: Information Sciences including: software, communications/networking, and semiconductors and the Life Sciences including; bioinformatics, medical devices, drugs, diagnostics and Cleantech.

The following business plan fundamentals serve as important criteria for our decision on what we choose to consider for investment.

1. Founding Team
The management team should consist of the key individuals that can execute and achieve the critical milestones to the next stage of funding.  It should ideally have a CEO that can lead the team even if the individual is not the long term CEO.  In any case the team should be committed to building a company, passionate, accomplished, work well together, and be well referenced.

2. Market
The opportunity to build a company really starts with the attractiveness of the market opportunity.  The size and growth rate are the most important metrics but there are other factors that are also important.  The industry structure, barriers to entry, customer switching costs, competitive landscape, behavior of incumbents, etc. all play into the attractiveness of the market.  Small markets seldom deliver the opportunity to build big companies.  We prefer companies that can deliver revenues of $50M to $100M within a four to five year period. This is only realizable in a large growing market.

3. Product/Service
The product or service offered should be disruptive and unique and solve a customer problem or meet a need.  The value propositions should be clear and the product should not require significant behavioral change on the part of the customer.

4. Business Model
The business model is the means by which you can develop profitable business in a repeatable manner.  While some investors will have an appetite for businesses that require large amounts of capital, Sand Hill Angels does not.  We prefer businesses and business models that are not capital intensive.  We prefer businesses with high and sustainable gross margins.  The combination of these two factors with a high growth market supports a high, internally sustainable growth rate.

5. Competition
The management team should appreciate the competitive landscape and understand both its present and future direct and indirect competitors.  They should also have a grasp on the sustainable competitive advantage that it can build through various means.

6. Communication
We want to stay informed about the progress of the company as it moves towards exit, with regular (typically quarterly) updates, covering:
• significant events eg closing of funding round
• milestones achieved: product, legal, IP, financial etc
• key business indicators status eg # users, advertisers, rollouts
• barriers or roadblocks (including assistance sought from SHA's network)
• priorities for the next quarter/year
• financials review
• personnel matters (discussed privately)
• anything else you deem significant, eg new competition, potential strategic partner etc..

7. Exit Strategy
We are primarily interested in teams that wish to build a company that can independently thrive and have an IPO scenario.  We realize that most successful investor exits will be the result of M&A, but we favor the management team that has the company building mindset versus the "build-it" to flip.