With the help of the Windsor Essex Capital Angel Network (WECAN), business across the Windsor-Essex County region is growing at an incredible rate. Through WECAN’s network of Angel Investors, 26 early-stage companies have received over $5.8 million in investments in this region over the past several years as WECAN strives to create a healthy framework for businesses to grow and succeed in.
One of WECAN’s incredible success stories revolves around the network’s co-chairman Shawn Bustin. On Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, Bustin made an exciting announcement about the recent success of one of his start-up investments, AgMedica Bioscience, Inc., to about 40 current and future Angel Investors at a group event at the Ciociaro Club in Oldcastle. He announced that Atlas Global Brands, Inc. had completed its RTO and is set to commence trading on the Canadian Security Exchange.
“Angel Investing gives you the opportunity to participate in higher returns,” explains Bustin. “It helps to allow you to get more involved in the day-to-day governance of a start-up, a board of directors type role where you can participate and help guide and provide your expertise and experience to help the Founders to be more successful moving forward.“
Bustin also says that WECAN facilitates an advantage for both the Angel Investor and Founder in the economic environment. “WECAN makes the connection,” he states. “It’s two-fold. From an investor’s perspective, it provides access to deal flow and provides access to lifeline individuals, from a networking, expertise, and experience-sharing perspective. From the Founder’s side, it provides access to capital through that same group. It really provides a conduit that matches up the Founder’s needs with the investors that have the capital they require.”
According to Bustin, the act of getting involved with the early stages of a start-up company can be very rewarding. “Financially, it’s rewarding, but, more importantly, to be a part of something that’s creating jobs and helping the financial and economic offshoots of that—the feeder industries and other jobs that are created as a spin-off—that’s rewarding as well.”
Bustin was highly complimentary of fellow Angel Investor Cam Crowder’s presentation on investment diversification and its benefits at the Jan. 11 convention. “I think Cam did a real nice job explaining the numbers behind it and why it’s important to have a diversified approach to angel investing. Some ideas are going to work real well, some will be somewhere in the middle, but I think it’s really important to support small businesses because they drive our local economy.“
Bustin says that he has been Angel Investing for about eight years now and that through working in banks and financial institutions over the years, he has always maintained an interest in small businesses and start-ups. “I saw a real need for, not only for debt solutions once they’re established, but angel capital—that initial capital to get to that stage,” he explains. “I was able to participate in a couple opportunities early, had some success, some failures, and it created a spark of interest.”
He adds that he is still very busy with his Angel Investments and that he is optimistic with the future. “I am invested in a few other start-ups and I do intend to get involved in a portfolio approach,” he says. “I think there’s lots of good things down the pipe and there will hopefully be more success moving forward.”
