Twitter and the Cambridge investors: the pecking order
Their combined stock may run into tens of millions of pounds, but is the value of the Cambridge angel funding community as strong in the world of Twitter? No, not for now at least.
Last week, Hermann Hauser, one of Cambridge's best known business personalities, entrepreneurs and investors, made his first significant excursion into the world of Twitter.
The alert came from another Cambridge entrepreneur and investor, Alex van Someren, now a partner at Amadeus and Angels Seed Fund, the firm Hermann set up.
"I'm helping give @HermannHauser lessons on setting up his Twitter account as we thunder up the A1 (someone else is driving!)"
Within minutes the number of followers began to rise from single figures to double and then treble in anticipation of "sagacious" advice. After linking to an Economist article dismissing Intel chips he added his own observation on Arm vs Intel.
"Number of ARM processors this year exceeds number of Intel processors produced in its entire history."
Hauser now has 138 followers, which though respectable for a week's work, is hardly Charlie Sheen territory. A fairer comparison is his Cambridge peers, the individual investors, not the corporates, and while he's behind most of those on Twitter, there's a larger number behind him that are absent altogether.
Does it matter though, after all, these investors are already very well connected in the 'real' world, that's part of the reason the investments happen in the first place?
A successful Twitter account also requires individual users, as opposed to the corporate accounts, to insert some of their personality into the process, but many investors, particularly angels, often prefer to keep a low profile.
However, Twitter can offer a gauge of what people are thinking who aren't necessarily direct associates, but who move within relevant circles, be it business or social.
This can help keep you connected with the very latest trends and occurrences in whichever community you choose to follow, it's called keeping your finger on the pulse.
A visit to the Cambridge Startup Chart, curated by Cabume and which details all the major players in Cambridge's startup community active on Twitter, provides a simple guide to the main influencers by looking at a combination of tweets and followers amongst other factors.
Looking at those who are Cambridge based and openly proclaim to be startup investors, Doug Richard, the one off the telly is at the topof the list for the angel community, as you would expect with that kind of exposure.
As well as co-founding Library House, Richard was vice-chairman of Cambridge Angels.
As befits someone with enough social media smarts to be an advisor and investor in LinkedIn, next up is Sherry Coutu.
Coutu has a fantastic track record in Cambridge and international investments including AlertMe, Cambridge Temperature Concepts, LoveFilm, Zoopla. She is behind SVC2C and advises Nesta Investments, Seedcamp and, from time to time, the government.
It is possibly worth noting that both Richard and Coutu, the top two investors who use Twitter from the region are in fact originally from North America.
Next is van Someren, former Acorn employee, founder of Ant plc and nCipher, Amadeus partner and ocassional social media guide to Hermann Hauser.
David Braben, developer of pioneering computer game Elite and behind the exciting new £15 computer initiative at Raspberry Pi is well placed, though his tweeting is less frequent.
Peter Cowley, a member of Cambridge Angels and director of the new Marshall investment vehicle, Martlet, ranks next and tweets frequently.
After that things slow somewhat. Hauser has only just kicked off his new tweeting initiative, so his rating should improve.
David Cleevely, chair of Cambridge Angels and major investor in Abcam among others is on the chart, but is yet to fully engage in the medium.
No Jack Lang, Andy Richards, Robert Sansom, Alan Barrell, Jonathan Milner, Ray Anderson, Robert Swann or David Gammon to name a few.
So with only half a dozen Cambridge investors on Twitter, we're missing out on some major personalities, but now Hermann Hauser's on board, could it prove to be time for a few more characters.
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