The Panther Angels help great entrepreneurs build their businesses.

Apply for Funding

Who We Are

Panther Angels is a venture capital firm specializing in start-up investments.

diagram

We have a diverse portfolio, with companies operating in the Enterprise Applications, EdTech, Enterprise Infrastructure, FinTech and Financial Services. Notably, we have invested in 7 Tech companies, 4 Enterprise (B2B) companies, 4 Saas companies and at least 4 companies focusing on Software.

Join the Panther Angels Network

Looking for funding or partnership opportunities? Let's connect.

Get in touch

Looking to raise capital for your start-up?  Send us a business plan.

info@pantherangels.com contact us
clean-plates virgil-security
yet-analytics m-power
edudream terbium-labs le-prix

Entrepreneurship

is our passion

Founded by Bryan M. Dao and Ralph E. Simms, the Panther Angels is helping entrepreneurs build their businesses one company at a time.

Partners

Panther Angels

Bryan M. Dao Bryan M. Dao

Partner and Co-Founder

Bryan M. Dao is a co-founder of Astrum Solar, Inc. (now Direct Energy Solar) one of the nation's largest residential solar providers which grew from three founders to 250 employees before its sale to Direct Energy, the North American subsidiary of British Gas in 2014.  At Astrum, Bryan served as an Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the Board of Directors.  In that capacity, he led a variety of initiatives including corporate fundraising, project finance fundraising and structuring, business development and strategy and commercial sales.  He also served as the company's first salesperson.

Bryan is also a fully recovered former M&A and venture capital attorney.  The recovery process took approximately 12 minutes.  He has a B.S. in Finance and a B.A. in History from the University of Maryland, College Park.  He also received J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law where he served as an Editor of the Law Review.

Ralph E. Simms Ralph E. Simms

Partner and Co-Founder

Ralph E. Simms is a co-founder of Astrum Solar, Inc. (now Direct Energy Solar) one of the nation's largest residential solar providers which grew from three founders to 250 employees before its sale to Direct Energy, the North American subsidiary of British Gas in 2014.  At Astrum, Ralph served as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors.  In that capacity, he provided that leadership which helped the business grow and ensured that his co-founders did not do anything completely crazy.   Ralph previously co-founded and served as President of American Journal Experts, an online professional services company for the academic publishing industry which he successfully exited in 2009

Ralph is a former scientist who decided it would be more fun experimenting with companies and business models than lab rats.  He has a in BSE Biomedical Engineering from Duke University where he was the valedictorian of the School of Engineering.  He also received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.  

From Mad Men to App Men

When one thinks of March they may think of warmer weather, the first day of spring or college basketball.  Here at AppVested, we are excited about all of those things, but our number one focus these days are great app ideas. In order to showcase just how large the mobile application market is, we’ve decided to pit the top 64 apps in terms of revenue generated via the iOS platform, in a battle for the Championship and crown the number one App for Q1 2015.

Mobile Apps are already off to an exciting year with Liam Neeson staring in a $9 million dollar Super Bowl commercial for Clash of Clans and Kate Upton staring in a Gods of War campaign. One may ask, how does a free mobile application afford to spend these kinds of marketing dollars? The answer is simple, in-app purchases (IAPs). When a user wants to upgrade in-game features and functionality without having to wait for hours or even days, they can pay a small fee and get their upgrades instantaneously. If users complete these small transactions a few times a week, those small purchases X millions of users, adds up very, very quickly. The numbers are so large in fact that in a single year two of SuperCell’s (developer of Clash of Clans) founders  became Finland's two largest taxpayers for a single year in 2014.

The numbers you will see in our 2015 App Madness bracket are huge and will only to continue to grow. In fact, by 2018 the mobile app market is expected to reach $92 billion in revenues generated. With projections like that we know more and more accredited investors will diversify their portfolios from more traditional investments and break into the mobile application market. We've recently launched AppVested.com and are excited to bridge the gap between folks with great app ideas to qualified individuals looking to invest in mobile app technologies. Our propriety AppValuation process helps to bolster the chances of launching a successful app. Our app-based business opportunity model forces us to be highly selective in the concepts we showcase on our portal for funding. In fact, we have received close to 400 app ideas as of 3.19.15 and have only listed 4 (1 %) on our platform. By utilizing our AppValuation process to select only what we feel to be the most opportune, we can help registered AppVestors to make smarter, more informed decisions in their mobile app-based investments. 

Whether you are an investor looking to diversify or someone who might have the next great app idea, see how AppVested plans to bring great apps to life while you sit back, relax and enjoy March Madness. 

If you are an investor, we encourage you to take a few moments and check out our AppVestor explainer video. 

Or, if you have what you feel is a great concept for a mobile application, but lack the time, money or skill set to turn your vision into reality, check out our AppVentor explainer video to submit your app idea today.