The Deal You're Waiting For Is in Your Backyard
Originally sent to Play Money subscribers · June 2026
Part of our ongoing Tuesday series on where great startup investments actually come from — regional ecosystems, local capital, and how angels find deals beyond Silicon Valley.
💎 Two weeks ago I sat down to look at the Play Money site and realized two of our most active deals were Alabama companies.
I booked a flight to Birmingham that night.
A week later I'm still buzzing and walking around the house in my airport-purchased BHM sweatshirt. That's the kind of trip it was.
-- C2K
New zip code. Who dis?
56% of Play Money angels are not in California or New York! Instead they cover 52 states and territories.
And even if you are one of the 44% in CA/NY, the most excited and inspiring Angel opportunites may not be in your backyard anymore.
Let's get the math out of the way. Then get to the meat.
"Everywhere Else" startups get better entry valuations, raise less capital, and stay scrappier because they aren't drowning in capital before they know if they need it. It's facts.
What does the mean for Angels: You don't need a multi-billion dollar IPO for a great investing return.
A $50M, $100M, or $250M exit – which is where most startup exits everywhere actually land – can be a financial game changer.
Great founders and companies now come from everywhere.
Alabama has over a dozen top quality accelerators. Birmingham specifically has several big exits ($500M, $1.2B, etc) under its belt.
The playbooks of how to grow and win now have local DNA.
The "right to win" lives in local markets.
Every ecosystem has it's own local industry where it is better than everyone else. Now that every industry has solutions that can scale like a tech company, regional expertise is a huge competitive advantage.
My favorite story from the trip was an agtech founder crushing better-funded coastal competitors. He didn't start out with better science. He had better connection with his farmer customers, because he grew up as one of them. By working alongside them as they used his product in their daily work he uncovered a non-obvious packaging insight and realized he had five products, not one. No SF/NYC based startup could have earned this insight so quickly.
Regional ecosystems are already investing (but don't realize it)
This was my biggest personal aha of the trip.
If you donate to your church, your university alumni group or sports boosters (Roll Tide!), or a local community organization, you've already laid claim to a thesis and a set of values. You've already decided where to invest your dollars and why.
Angel isn't a leap. It's the next step on "community as thesis". The two biggest differences:
- When the "investment" is a true Capital-I investment it's regenerative. It can deliver hard-dollar returns that can be reinvested again.
- The value you get from an investment is multiplied because when you invest local you benefit from all the residual returns, whether the company financially succeeds or not. Talk about a way to reduce perceived risk!
Shipt is the biggest logo on the tallest building in Birmingham. Target bought them for $500M a few years back. Investors got a one time windfall, but the entire community continues to collect with over $1B of downstream value as the company grows.
3 things in Birmingham every regional ecosystem should copy
1. Pilot contracts as investment.
A regional construction company has a formal program to adopt local startup suppliers, technology, tools, and services. Being the pilot customer is built in as a company value not a career risk. That probably does more to accelerate local startups than a simple check even could.
2. State programs that help layer national capital on top of local.
The state matches $100K of outside capital raised AND feeds additional matching dollars to the VCs vetting the strongest local companies. Because of this program Los Angeles based Halogen ventures - a firm sitting on a half dozen unicorns and 2 pending IPOs - will be making 15 Alabama-based investments out of their current fund. Moxi and Accelerate Wind (both live on Play Money right now) are proud Halogen portfolio companies! Talk about a smart policy to stack the deck in building national dollars on top of local dollars. ...and you know Play Money helps do the same!
3. More than one flavor of capital.
Malone Unlimited is a working-capital lending fund deliberately built to support both working capital for tech startups AND vibrant small businesses required to make an upcoming tech hub a place people actually want to live. These loans are modeled after what nationally-focused Daintree Capital has been doing for years. A handful of past Play Money deals (Moxi, Bold Reuse, Womeness, and even Play Money ourselves!) have used these loans along equity financing. Smart founders don't dilute to cover buildout, inventory, and escrows.
If I've offically made you Alabama-curious, check out:
Accelerate Wind: Wind turbines for commercial buildings
Moxi: On-demand flexible childcare infrastructure
Monthly: Underwear for people with complex periods - via Pipeline Angels
Malone Unlimited: local working-capital lending fund
🎯 The deal you've been waiting for might already be in your backyard – or in someone else's.
And if you're singing that song in your head right now...sorry, not sorry.
Play Money makes angel investing accessible by helping everyday angels build diversified startup portfolios without turning it into a full-time job.
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