A new angel-investor group in Southeastern Michigan, the Woodward Angels, has been quietly planning a launch and will convene its first meeting this week at the Shinola Hotel in Detroit.

The group will be a legal affiliate of Grand Angels Holding Co. LLC, the holding company for the Grand Rapids-based Grand Angels, considered the most active angel investor group in Michigan and one of the most active in the Midwest.

Tim Parker, the president of the Grand Angels, said he expects about 100 high-net-worth individuals at the inaugural informational meeting, which is closed to the public and aimed at getting attendees to join the new group.

The creation of the new group would help fill a gap in the angel-investing community since the Great Lakes Angels, another group, stopped holding monthly pitch meetings early last year.

He said the Woodward Angels is part of an ongoing effort to roll out affiliated investor groups around the state. In August 2017, the Grand Angels helped launch the Ka-Zoo Angels as a legal affiliate. "That was our prototype to see how it worked, and it's worked out well," he said.

As of early January, the Ka-Zoo Angels had 15 members and had invested $435,000 in eight companies.

Parker said those affiliate investor groups will be part of the holding company DBA called the Michigan Capital Network.

"In another few months, we'll have another rollout in another community I can't name, yet, and we're talking to a couple of other existing angel groups about joining our group. We will be using our back office to manage deal flow, due diligence, deal negotiation and portfolio management. It is the same model with the Ka-Zoo Angels," Parker said. "The best thing about it is we're building bridges across the state. There aren't any barriers to doing deals."

The second Wednesday of each month, the Grand Angels hold a pitch event for two or three entrepreneurs seeking equity capital in the morning, then they drive to Kalamazoo for an afternoon pitch. "Now, they'll pitch in Detroit, too, though it won't be the same day," Parker said.

Dan Gilbert's roles both as a venture-capital investor with Detroit Venture Partners and with the Shinola Hotel — the hotel, which opened Jan. 2 at 1400 Woodward Ave., is a joint venture of Gilbert's Bedrock LLC and Shinola/Detroit LLC — raise the question of whether he would be involved with the Woodward Angels.

Parker told Crain's that there is a very prominent Detroit-area businessperson who is key to the launch of the Woodward Angels but said he didn't have permission to name names. A Gilbert spokesperson did not respond to emails.

The Woodward Angels fill a void in the angel-investment sector in Metro Detroit. The Great Lakes Angels were founded by David Weaver in 2002 but stopped holding monthly pitch meetings in the Detroit area with prospective entrepreneurs early in 2018. Crain's reported last June that Weaver had joined Farmington Hills-based City Side Ventures LLC as chief investment officer of a new limited-partner fund of $18 million it was hoping to raise, the Great Lakes Venture Fund LP.

He said a fund allows investors to invest in portfolio companies without having to do the personal due diligence typically required by angel investors after they attend pitch events. "We do the heavy lifting for them and can deploy more funds over a greater number of deals than they can do on their own," he said.

Weaver said he hopes to announce a close on the fund in coming weeks. In recent years, early stage companies have had to rely more on angel investing because venture capitalists have grown more conservative, typically looking for companies already generating revenue instead of investing in startups.

"This is news to me," Weaver said when asked if he had heard of the Woodward Angels. "I will ask Tim to share more about this and see if we can help. We are glad to see more angels get in this asset class, no matter with whom. Maybe Tim's group can find folks that can be active. I hope so. There is room for us all," said Weaver.

The Grand Angels are fond of the limited-partner-fund model, too. Previously, they raised funds of $2 million and $7 million, which are fully invested, and are raising a third fund of between $15 million and $20 million. Angel investors can choose to do due diligence on their own investments or put money into a fund and let it do the due diligence and portfolio management, or, as is often the case, they can do both.

The fund model has been spreading among angel investors. The Ann Arbor-based Michigan Angels have raised three $2 million funds, which co-invest with individual members in portfolio companies, and the Midland-based BlueWater Angels have been raising a fund of $3 million to $5 million.

In July, Grosse Pointe Farms-based Belle Michigan, a group of women angel investors, announced it was raising a $20 million fund, the Belle Michigan Impact Fund, to invest in early stage companies owned by women.

The Grand Angels were founded in 2004 by prominent western Michigan banker Charles Stoddard and grew to prominence statewide under the leadership of Jody Venderwel. An attorney at Herman Miller Inc., the Zeeland-based furniture maker, she was recruited in 2005 to serve as president of the Grand Angels.

In 2016, she was named by Crain's as one of the 100 most influential women in Michigan. Later that year she stepped down as president and was replaced by Parker.