The Angel Nest

AI is reshaping every industry, but few are as ripe for reinvention as advertising, a business built on a slow and expensive mix of creativity and manpower. In this New York Angels edition of The Angel Nest, host David Hemenway sits down with New York Angels member Mike Jacobs and Anna Stepura, founder of Adlyse, an AI-driven performance marketing platform built for direct response advertisers. An...

Elementary schools are no longer exclusively about academics. Now, educators also share responsibility for building students' character, as well as their social and emotional health. Today on The Angel Nest, we meet Maria Howard, founder of Heroes Made, a character education platform for grades one through six that personalizes lessons to every student through storytelling, eliminating prep time f...

Angel investing in medical technology can be tough. The science is complex, the timelines are long, and the risks are hard to judge without the right expertise in the room. At the New York Angels, that has changed. In this New York Angels edition of The Angel Nest, we meet NYA members and medical experts Vijay Aggarwal, PhD and John Younger, and learn how they evaluate life science opportunities....

When Pascal de Mul was part of a young Spotify team revolutionizing music distribution, he unintentionally killed something he loved: the live bootleg. Now he is bringing it back, legally and in studio quality. Today on The Angel Nest, we meet Pascal de Mul, founder of Setmixer, the UK-based music technology company that permanently installs recording equipment directly into venue mixing desks, ca...

Drones have been consumer products for years, but entrepreneurs are now finding their commercial potential. New ideas are coming fast, and few are as ambitious as SkyFire. In this New York Angels edition of The Angel Nest, we meet Don Mathis, a former Navy flight officer who watched drones change the course of modern warfare in Ukraine and decided it was time to build something bigger at home. Sky...

How are investors going to get ROI, from AI? We hear a lot about the investment in artificial intelligence. But the New York Angels are working hard to find investible companies where artificial intelligence will yield real profits. In this episode, we meet Eric Tao, the founder of Mega Minds and Josh Powe, a New York Angels member and angel investor in Mega Minds. They’re using AI to scale their...

When David Steinberger decided to start a creator-friendly comics brand, he hoped to partner with angel investors who could help. On this special New York Angels edition of the Angel Nest, you'll learn how that initial partnership spawned not one successful company, but two. Today, we meet Dytslry and its founder David Steinberger, whose independent next-generation comic book publishing company ha...

In a special edition of the Angel Nest podcast, host David Hemenway talks with two prominent experts about the Rhode Island Life Science Hub and how the Hub’s support is integral to growing the life science sector in New England and helping to get great ideas to market faster. Among the most important priorities in life science today is the work being done on the human brain. Dr. Leigh Hochberg is...

On this special New York Angels edition of the Angel Nest, board chair Cindy Cook joins us to interview the founder of the New York Angels, David S. Rose. He’s updated his famous book, “Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun in Startups.” We’ll learn what’s new and how angel investing has changed since he came to be known as the father of angel investing in New York. Rose a...

We hear a lot about AI these days and how it makes work efficient, but what does that actually mean in practice? In this special episode of the Angel Nest podcast, we hear from people who are actually making it happen in finance and accounting. Host David Hemenway welcomes Johnnie Walker from Rooled Outsourced CFO and Accounting and Parker Gilbert, CEO of Numeric.  Rooled are the startup finance e...

The Rhode Island Life Science Hub is accelerating innovation in New England. In this episode of The Angel Nest, we talk with Dr. Tejal Desai, Sorenson Family Dean of Engineering at Brown University about how Brown and The Rhode Island Life Science Hub are partnering to bring groundbreaking ideas to market faster. Discover how collaboration across engineering, medicine, and tech is shaping the next...

This month on the New York Angels edition of The Angel Nest, we meet a great business inspired by a disaster. When his home flooded with water, John Rusk decided there had to be a better way to protect property. So, he invented an early warning system and started ProSentry in 2019 to prevent others from experiencing the same frustration. In a recent 18 month period, they alerted commercial and res...

Academically rich, Rhode Island and its capital city of Providence have traditionally excelled in research and innovation. Remember the industrial revolution started in Rhode Island. But now there’s a new catalyst to create businesses and jobs and bring new technologies to the marketplace that can help solve some of society’s most vexing problems. Investors are taking note and getting involved.  I...

At Brown University they’re working on something called the extracellular matrix – a way to help the body promote tissue healing and regeneration with minimal negative impact and without debilitating drugs. It could be a game changer for heart disease and a host of other ailments.  In this episode, we meet XM Therapeutics and the ecosystem at Brown Technology innovations that is working to make th...

Building a winning startup brand takes more than just a great product. As this episode’s guests tell us, potential investors should also consider how a company is positioning it's brand in the marketplace to gauge whether or not it will be successful.  Brian Morley, CMO at Native Orthopaedics, and Tino Chow, founder of the strategic branding firm Giant Shoulders, join us fresh off their win, being...

In this special New York Angels edition of The Angel Nest podcast, we talk with IC 360 (Integrity Compliance 360) which provides integrity monitoring and regulatory compliance for sports betting and has grown to more than $10MM in annual revenue. It's clients include top brands like The NFL, MLB and The PGA Tour. Hear founder Scott Sadin and NYA lead investor Jeff Seltzer talk about how IC 360 bui...

This edition of The Angel Nest features Cameron Hendrix, co-founder of Magellan AI, the company revolutionizing podcast ad measurement and attribution. Since receiving seed funding from New York Angels, Magellan has grown revenue 8–10x and now helps advertisers understand exactly where their podcast dollars are going. Also featured: NYA investor Michael Costa shares why Magellan stood out and disc...

Online sports betting topped $18 billion in the U.S. last year and is on track to reach $30 billion in the next 10 years. Nearly 95% of all sports betting was done online in 2024, with companies like Fan Duel leading the charge.  In this episode of the Angel Nest podcast, we continue our series with Johnnie Walker of Rooled Outsourced CFO and Accounting Services and we welcome Nigel Eccles, a foun...

In this special New York Angels edition of the Angel Nest Podcast we talk to the co-founder of Fixe, an automated streamlined bookkeeping service for the restaurant industry. We'll hear how his chance meeting led to The New York Angels leading his seed investment round. Guests include Ryan Handel, the CEO of Fixe, and Simon Hopkins, a New York Angel, who co-led the investment in Fixe and has serve...

Pulse oximeters are small devices that clip onto your finger at a doctor’s office or hospital to measure blood oxygen levels. Unfortunately, these devices do not do an equitable job of producing accurate results across all skin tones. Kimani Toussaint, senior associate dean for research and strategic initiatives at the Brown University School of Engineering, joined us on The Angel Nest Podcast to...

If you’re a B2B software founder or investor you want to talk to Tom Wisniewski. His Newark Venture Partners make big seed stage bets through a $200MM fund. Tom is a partner at NVP, where they invest in world-class B2B software in the Fintech and e-commerce space, including marketplaces and digital. They’re known to write $1-$3MM checks at seed stage.  In this episode of the Angel Nest Podcast, we...

You know David S. Rose as the father of angel investing in New York, and the Founder and CEO of Gust.com. Now he’s bringing liquidity to investors in commercial real estate through USREM (which stands for US Real Estate Market). You can meet him at The NYC Fintech Connect Event on February 27, but we’re pleased to welcome him to this edition of the Angel Nest podcast for a preview of the event.  R...

Do your knees hurt? If so, you’ve got plenty of company. It turns out that arthroscopic knee surgery is one of the most popular procedures. In this episode of the Angel Nest, we speak to Dr. Chris Anderson, the founding surgeon of Native Orthopaedics. He grew up tying fly fishing knots in his native Tennessee and used that experience to invent the dragonfly finger trap method of repairing meniscus...

With everyone living and playing longer, orthopaedic issues are booming for baby boomers, and for the rest of us. In this Angel Nest First Look episode, we meet Native Orthopaedics. Their technology will revolutionize the way meniscus tears are repaired. And, it might just work for a whole host of other problems too.  Brian Morley of Native Orthopaedics joins us for this discussion. We’ll have an...

Every venture fund claims to add value, but what does that mean to investors? Luke Timberlake and his partners at Fintech Ventures are finding ways to capitalize on the movement that gives small investors access to bigger potential returns and markets they can’t invest in on their own.  In this episode of The Angel Nest podcast, we’ll talk with Luke about Fintech Ventures and how they provide the...