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Women Angels

Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer started Women Angels three years ago. The fund now has 38 investors. It is one of just a few nationwide that cater to women-owned businesses. "We are seeing better deals coming to us, in better terms for us because money is so tight," she says. [Photo: Daniel Portnoy]
When former entrepreneur Barbara Boxer arrived in Miami, she almost immediately saw a dearth in financing for women-owned businesses. In 2007, she launched Women Angels, a network of 38 south Florida women diverse in age, profession and ethnicity.

To join Women Angels, members must earn more than $200,000 a year or have net assets of more than $1 million (which includes home value). Some of the angels are successful female entrepreneurs who cashed out of their businesses and are looking for new opportunities. The group recently invested in myreceipts.com, its fifth investment in a south Florida woman-owned business, and will soon turn from a network into a fund with a collected pot of money to invest. At this time, Boxer says, the angels still have all investments but may be close on exiting two of them. "Let one investment hit, and then it will be easier to turn into a fund," she says.

Boxer says her group gets about 10 submissions a week from its website and holds regular dinner meetings to review those that appear promising. The investors in Women Angels come from a variety of backgrounds, including technology, healthcare, banking, consumer products, construction, engineering, non-profit and retail.

Boxer, general counsel for PDM Bridge, ran her own international mail-order medical supply company for 20 years before selling it in 1990. This group is one of fewer than a dozen angel groups nationwide that exclusively invest in women-owned companies.