Most Influential: Dan Rosen

Rosen has helped provide make-or-break funding for more than 140 Northwest entrepreneurs over the last dozen years

Dan Rosen [ Chair, Alliance of Angels, and CEO, Dan Rosen + Associates ]

As chair of the not-for-profit Alliance of Angels, an organization of more than 100 individuals who invest in early-stage companies, Rosen has helped provide make-or-break funding for more than 140 Northwest entrepreneurs over the last dozen years. Often using personal funds, angel investors are the critical link between the “friends and family” stage of borrowing and the more formal venture capital stage—hence the beatific moniker. Unlike venture capitalists, who look for quick returns on their investments, angel investors are often committed to firms for as long as eight years. In recent months, as venture capital has dried up, Rosen’s Alliance has played an even larger role in the fate of Seattle’s startups. Last year, the Alliance made 34 investment transactions worth about $6.4 million, a 64 percent increase over 2007 and the second-highest investment total since the organization was founded 12 years ago. Rosen boasts: “One hundred percent of the companies that have received money [from the Alliance] in the last four years are either still in business or have been acquired.”