It’s been a long while since I blogged about angel investing. I’ve let myself be busy with other things I’ll do a comprehensive update in the coming weeks, but I realized I never my participation in the recent angel round closed by Teragence.

I first became aware of Teragence when Christian, the co-founder and CEO presented at #geomob last year. Basically Teragence crowdsources anonymized data on mobile network performance by working with app developers. They then turn that data into actions that telcos can use to improve network performance. Here are some screenshots of some of their analysis (taken from their website):

So, why did I chose to invest:

  1. This investment is in my area of focus. I want to concentrate more and more on location-based/geo investments where I can apply my domain knowledge and network. In general I prefer the much more predictable path of B2B start-ups.

  2. Great founder. I was impressed by Christian’s presentation, but more so by his many years relevant industry experience. The public perception is that most startup founders are 23 year old whiz kids. The reality is most successful exits come from much more experienced founders - people who have worked in the trenches of an industry, seen a gap in the market and then create a compelling solution. This is especially the case in selling to large enterprises.

  3. The core concept of crowdsourcing the relevant performance data just makes sense, especially as app developers have fewer and fewer tools to monetize.

  4. Despite all the noise about Google/Apple/Amazon/FB/etc, the “stupid-pipe” mobile industry remains gigantic, not just in usage, but also revenues. But customers are increasingly fickle and operators need to perform. Working with Teragence is a great way for them to learn where and how to improve network performance.

Teragence closed their round (including a few well regarded names from the mobile industry) and has now gone to market, winning the first big-name clients. A strong start and I am delighted to be along for the journey. If you are in the telco industry or are an app developer with an app with many downloads, then please check out Teragence.