Kelly Perdew

I was very fortunate to know Luis Villalobos for over 10 years, as a fellow Board member, business partner, mentor and friend and I will miss him greatly. We grew much closer over the most recent 5 years as he asked me to partner with him in launching the next iteration of his vision to help entrepreneurs succeed: Angel Venture Partners.

He was always been there for me in any business deal, contract negotiation, or fund-raising event with logical, well-thought out, and always accurate advice. Luis came to my last two birthday parties (he knows and gives great wine as presents!), my wife’s and my engagement party, and he came to our wedding in Vegas this last January and took better photos of the event than our photographer! Luis embodied the 10 leadership principles I outline in my book - especially integrity. Luis always maintained clarity in every deal and acted with the utmost integrity. Southern California and the US entrepreneurial community has lost a great man, a great contributor. He will be missed by all.

Here is Luis’ formal bio (it is about 6 months old so there are probably a few more deals he’s in) but it doesn’t come close to describing his true impact on the world:

Luis Villalobos has a proven track record as a direct investor in 63 early-stage ventures – 14 successful exits (4 IPOs and 10 mergers), and 31 ventures remaining active. He has a strong technology background and holds several patents as lead inventor; he formed, headed and sold two ventures; and has mentored about a dozen CEOs. He earned degrees at Harvard Business School (MBA) and MIT (SB Math) where he was a National Merit Scholar.

He was the founder of the Tech Coast Angels, whose 111 portfolio companies have received $782 million in capital. He is a founding Board member of the Angel Capital Association – an organization with 100+ member angel groups. He helped start two other angel groups, East Coast Angels in Sydney Australia, and Camino Real Angels in Texas. He has developed and led over 100 workshops for angel group leaders, angels, bar associations (for MCLE credit), and entrepreneurs – on valuations, due diligence, term sheets, deal structures, venture capital, angel investing, early-stage funding, business plans, patents and intellectual property, and entrepreneurship. Villalobos is frequently quoted in the press regarding angel investing, and is a featured speaker and panelist at entrepreneurial events and conferences.

Villalobos has experience and expertise in IT (telecom, computer architectures, networks, micros, minis, codecs, security, graphics, imaging, compression); artificial intelligence (genetic algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy logic); software (assemblers, compilers, Visual Basic, application programming, cognitive and recognition algorithms); biotech (degenerative brain disease therapeutics); applications (computer-based education).

Please consider contributing to this fund that his colleagues and friends in the Tech Coast Angels have set up in his name: Luis Villalobos Memorial Scholarship, UCI Graduate School of Business: Send check to UCI Graduate School of Business c/o Luis Villalobos Memorial Scholarship Fund.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.