Today’s TechDrawl report is filed by Jesse Dyer, CEO of TourGroove:

Congratulations to all involved in the first iteration of the Flashpoint program at Georgia Tech.  A very carefully curated group of startups was well coached and brought to the stage on Tuesday January 10 in one of the most flawless venues and formats I’ve seen.

Opportunity is knocking for Atlanta’s tech angels.  From personally making the rounds in Atlanta, Austin & New York, I can confidently say that the presenters at Flashpoint Demo Day brought everything one could ask in a tech startup...now will investors out there respond in kind?

I'm really impressed with the quality of start-ups in Atlanta.  Yes they are all SaaS, and yes many of them are some offshoot of Internet Security Systems, but so what!  Atlanta does Internet security, and it does it very well.  These are smart folks.  Again this is not a Y-Combinator scene.  These are GA Tech PhDs, professors, grads and one really sharp undergrad who all have prior technology start-up experience and are solving problems that they've faced in past entrepreneurial endeavors.   There’s no sex & violence, but these are hard B2B problems that someone needs to solve.  Why not here in Atlanta?   

Flashpoint Demo Day at GTRI’s auditorium had an overflow crowd excited to be a part of the buzz for this first outing.   It had a much looser feel then Venture Atlanta even though 1/3 of the presenters were repeats from that event.   However, it seemed all the VA grads had made progress since I last saw them, and the new faces that found their footing at Flashpoint fit in well with the regulars.

Here's the problem, by my count these startups are passing the hat for over $9M.  Where's that going to come from?  Godfather Sig already rounded up a cool $Million to get Flashpoint off the ground, and I bet Noro-Moseley will be there when a Series A is in order, but who is going to fill the gap in between?   I'm just curious how many angels are out there for Atlanta deals?  And not just in Atlanta.  I talked with another entrepreneur friend of mine who is actually a Flashpoint mentor, and he was lamenting a meeting he'd had earlier in the day when a local investor balked at him for seeking seed investment before he had finalized all development and stabilized his revenue stream.  It seems that outside San Francisco and the Valley true arms-length risk-taking angels are a scarce breed.  Austin and New York are no different.  It's telling that in 2012 when U.S. Treasuries can pay a negative rate of return that angel investors seem to expect entrepreneurs to eliminate all the risks but also to deliver a 1999 return.    

From my years in banking I saw that the country's greatest risk takers generally are real estate gamblers (sorry but it's true); I feel that since so much of the real estate wealth has evaporated in Atlanta, many of the real risk takers who would write the bigger angel checks have disappeared.   The primary angel market I see outside of Silicon Valley is for token $5-25K checks after 72-hour start-up weekends.  That's just not going to cut it here in Atlanta, and this community deserves better.  Maybe $5K will fund your start-up weekend - super lean - soft beta - 20 & 22 year old cofounders - mobile app that curates the social feed around your 80%-off dog grooming coupons...but addressing a $37 billion dollar phone fraud problem is going to take some substantial investment.  PinDrop has already found its lead dollars in Silicon Valley, but wouldn’t it have been nice for that opportunity for wealth creation to have remained at home?

If Atlanta doesn’t have $9M handy, then the Flashpoint group will hopefully find success on its stops in New York next week and California the week after that.  I hope their stories aren't lost in translation outside of the ATL.  While Internet security is all the rage here, its sex appeal is quickly neutered (unfairly) when compared to Foursquare and Facebook.  That's why it's now more important than ever that the Atlanta angel community rises up and starts writing checks again.  You don't get mobile...fine.   Can't get comfortable with Social....OK, you're not the first.   BUT, no excuses if the community of Atlanta angels can't really get behind these home grown SaaS Internet security winners.  From CodeGuard to PinDrop to Social Fortress, if these teams are still schilling at Venture Atlanta 2012 then shame on us.  I'm kicking one of you angels out of your seat next year so I'm not stuck sitting on the floor at Flashpoint Demo Day 2013.

(Editor’s Note:  I hope you Atlanta readers will take Jesse’s comments as a call to action and not as any form of criticism.   He’s been through similar forums in Austin and NY and now has real world basis for his perspective on this.  Too many potential angel investors in Atlanta have preferred to hold their money for their own deals, including me when I was in that stage of my life.  Meanwhile, we’ve seen hundreds of $Billions of wealth creation in the Bay Area over the last few years where there is an abundant supply of the aforementioned arms-length money.   Dave McClure of 500 Startups has alone invested in 252 startups in only 2 years of operations and did his first deal of 2012 on January 3.  That kind of velocity, even if you view it as “spray and pray”, is an example of how differently angel investing is defined in that one section of the US.)

So, Atlanta investors, “start them checkbooks” and make some $Billions at home.

<photo by Jesse Dyer>