This egalitarian angel syndicate in DC is removing barriers to investing

Angel investors in the DMV are coming together to leverage their shared resources and democratize the fundraising process. 

District Angels, a volunteer-run angel syndicate out of the DC Tech and Venture Coalition made up of accredited investors, launched over the summer. The group focuses on funneling capital to primarily pre-seed and seed-stage startups in the region but also considers investments beyond it. The group carries out research and due diligence on investments as a unit and invests together through a special purpose vehicle — a separate legal entity with its own assets and liabilities. 

This can be more efficient than meeting with individual angels for both founders and investors, explained District Angels cofounder and co-lead Naviya Kothari. Instead of going before several individual angel investors, founders can pitch to one entire audience through a syndicate. Plus, investors can benefit from the more vetted process, she said.  

Another advantage for founders, as is the case with angel investing generally, is that they tend to be more personally invested than a traditional venture capital funder. They put in their own money and often dedicate time outside their regular workday, Kothari said.

“They’re willing to dedicate a disproportionate amount of time supporting this founder and seeing them live out their vision,” Kothari told Technical.ly. “And, an angel syndicate just facilitates that connection more seamlessly.”

District Angels has not formally invested yet, but has connected startups to other investment opportunities, per Kothari. The goal is to make four to six investments in 2025, and the group will syndicate for deals at a $100,000 minimum or work with another group for deals below that amount.  

To be a member, the annual fee amounts to about $300. Investment thresholds start as low as $1,000. 

Outside of scouting investments, District Angels created a fellowship program for budding investors to learn how it all works, and applications for its second cohort are due Friday. 

This follows a pilot in the fall that lasted six weeks and hosted five fellows. Kothari and the rest of the syndicate wanted to lower the barrier to entry for investing, she said, and found this program could do that. 

“A fellowship, I thought, would just be this almost democratized way of making the whole investing process more accessible and more available to those curious,” she said.

District Angels co-lead Charlotte Clark, a Baltimore-based fellow with the International Economic Development Council, put the program together. She focused on balancing learning all of the necessary investment terminology with following through in applying the knowledge, she said. 

For example, fellows would hear founders pitch and attend happy hours with other investors to practice using terms learned during the fellowship sessions. Fellows also learned how to evaluate market potential and draft investment memos. 

Clark, who works with Impact Hub Baltimore and the BASE Network, additionally wanted to teach fellows how to help founders build and scale — and that investing is more than a financial input. 

“I can actually help create a curriculum that is not just, ‘Here’s how you invest in startup founders,’” Clark told Technical.ly, “but, ‘Let’s build more empathy around the founder experience.’”

Sephora Saint-Armand, a manager at the State of Maryland’s investment vehicle TEDCO, completed the fellowship and said the experience gives her an “edge.” She started working at TEDCO in February as its ecosystem and equitech manager — a term for equity-minded innovation principles the ecosystem-building organization UpSurge Baltimore coined and promoted before its adoption by state entities — and previously worked at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures. Saint-Armand specifically appreciated how the fellowship taught her how to ask meaningful questions and work with founders. 

“I think this was a great quality introduction,” Saint-Armand told Technical.ly. “I haven’t come across other programs doing it like them.”

Often, syndicates operate in insular ways, and this program sets it apart from other groups in the US, Clark said. 

District Angels also works with other entrepreneurship-focused groups in the DMV, including the DC Tech and Venture Coalition (which it operates under) and DC Startup and Tech Week. 

The group hopes to work with college students in the future to help with due diligence processes and was inspired by American University’s launching its own venture fund for pupils.

“Trying to pull in other parts of the ecosystem, other support organizations and people,” Clark said, “allows for … as they’re interacting with us, they’re also indirectly integrated with economic development organizations.”

This article mentions TEDCO, a Technical.ly client. It also mentions DC Startup and Tech Week, for which Technical.ly was a media partner. Neither relationship has any impact on this report.