Entrepreneurs seek a few good angels; INVEST: Matchmaking group stages a "first date" for the hopeful and the rich.

BYLINE: By RICHARD RICHTMYER Anchorage Daily News

Paul Goodwin and Jerry Winchester have an idea for a new kind of electronic circuit design that mimics the human nervous system and might someday enable computers to see and hear in much the same way people do.

Horst Popperl runs a small wireless networking company that has been making inroads in Anchorage and rural parts of the state but hasn't quite crossed the line to profitability.

Theirs were among a handful of business ventures pitching their ideas this week at a gathering of local "angel investors," a term that refers to wealthy people who are looking to put their money and expertise behind an early-stage business venture with the potential for big future profits.

"We've been working on this pretty much for four or five days straight," said Goodwin, who with the other would-be entrepreneurs was sequestered in a separate room from the potential investors before and after making their 10-minute pitches.

The conference was organized by Alaska InvestNet, a nonprofit corporation that tries to bring Alaska entrepreneurs and investors together. No money changed hands at the Wednesday evening event. Doing that might violate federal rules on stock offerings, said Kevin Wiley, InvestNet's executive director.

Instead, the aim was to introduce the people with ideas to the people with money in the hope of scoring a "second date."

About 20 potential angel investors and their guests attended the gathering, which was at the Hotel Captain Cook. The pool was limited to people whose net worth is at least $1 million, not including the value of their houses, or whose annual income is at least $200,000.

Some of the entrepreneurs weren't looking for that much money. Goodwin, who calls his company Variance Dynamical, said he needs about $500,000 to make his prototype chips.

Others were looking for a bit more. For example, representatives of BioPar, which pitched an idea to use digital imaging technology for tracking fish and other wildlife populations, were seeking more than $4 million to get their business idea off the ground.

Each of the five startups at the investor gathering was pitching a technology idea that is separate from Alaska's core resource-development and tourism industries.

A small group of Alaska businesspeople have been trying for years to foster the kind of angel investing environment that has seeded the growth of tech startups in Silicon Valley, Seattle and other parts of the country.

Some of them believe that just one big success story could be enough to garner that kind of interest.

"If we can generate just one success, people will say, 'We can really do it here,' " said Hans Roeterink, one of the investors at Wednesday's gathering. "But right now, the market isn't really conducive to it. You can make more money by owning a backhoe and digging holes in the ground than investing in a startup here."

Roeterink once headed the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, a former state agency that used investment profits from an endowment to provide seed money to manufacturing and technology startups. In 2003, state lawmakers shut down the foundation.

Jim Gottstein, an Anchorage attorney and another of the investors, agreed that technology startups face a tough challenge in Alaska, a lesson he learned in part by backing a small local Internet service company that went bankrupt in 2001.

"Getting past the chasm to positive cash flow can be really tough," he said.

That company, called Spectrum Wireless, later came back to life as Borealis Broadband, one of the five companies on the agenda at Wednesday's gathering.

Popperl, who founded and runs the company, said he was heartened by the number of potential investors in the room.

"This was the biggest local event with the most qualified angels that I've seen in 10 years," he said. "And it wasn't just us putting on a show. They asked very pertinent questions, so I knew they were really listening. That was very encouraging."

Daily News reporter Richard Richtmyer can be reached at rrichtmyer@adn.com or 257-4344.