Innovate Mississippi was proud to have supported the launch of South Mississippi Angel Fund I, a new regional angel fund focused from Hattiesburg to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The fund, which launched in 2022, is open to additional interest from accredited investors, targeting to be a $1 million fund.
The fund’s founding members hired the Appalachian Investors Alliance to support the fund by assisting with due diligence, deal negotiation, and closing on potential investments. AIA also manages North Mississippi Angel Fund I, and associating with AIA allowed the South Mississippi Angel Fund members to share their native deals with the AIA network funds and participate in deals funded by other funds that were part of the AIA network.
“When a new fund launches, we at AIA love to help them get some early wins by exposing them to deals across our network,” said Jeremy Turner, Business Development Officer at AIA. “That gets them into the investment process to see some early positive activity, which further emboldens them as they move through the lifecycle of their fund.”
Turner said that every fund develops an initial “investment thesis” that guides the types of companies and deals the fund prefers to invest in and the geographic scope within which the fund would focus. The member-managed South Mississippi Angel Fund is no different.
“As is typical with new funds, South Mississippi was still working through some of these details, but they want to invest primarily in Mississippi deals,” he said. “That’s not to say that they wouldn’t invest outside of the region as deals may come to them from the AIA network funds, but they and the North Mississippi Angel Fund alike are keen on investing in Mississippi.”
Turner had said that companies coming out of the CoBuilders accelerator program and other regional startups in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Mississippi Guld Coast are creating a pipeline of deals to consider.
The South Mississippi Angel Fund has a website at https://somissangelfund.com where accredited investors and entrepreneurs can get in touch with the fund management to learn more.
“As we have worked to form regional angel funds around Mississippi, we’ve seen that giving investors a choice of how to participate—in a fund or on their own— increases deals being closed,” said Innovate Mississippi CEO Tony Jeff. “These regional funds are also a real asset for their community because they help fund growth of regional businesses.”
Companies looking to pitch to the South Mississippi Fund or investors interested in learning more can reach out to Lindsey Benefield (lbenefield@innovate.ms) at Innovate Mississippi.
