Tracy Wilkins is no stranger to being hit up for money.

As one of the region's few "angel" investors, the co-founder and president of TechLab Inc. has helped fund a number of startups, including an e-mail hosting company in Blacksburg and a used car parts business in Richmond.

Yet for years, finding investors like Wilkins could be a lengthy and often frustrating affair for would-be entrepreneurs.

"Those types of people are not necessarily advertising it on a Web site," noted Pat Matthews, president and co-founder of Webmail.us, a Blacksburg-based startup that was recently acquired. "They don't want everybody to know that they can go write a check for $50,000."

To find them, cash-strapped entrepreneurs often had to chat up a series of business leaders, hoping to hit on someone with the right connections.

Enter the Virginia Active Angel Network.

Established in Charlottesville, the group aims to streamline the process by which entrepreneurs find the angel investors capable of financing their endeavors. Like many angel investment groups across the country, VAAN focuses on seed and startup funding in the $150,000 to $1.5 million range, but can partner with other groups to offer more.

Last year, managing directors expanded the network into the Roanoke and New River valleys, hoping to take advantage of both the volume of technology spinning out of Virginia Tech and the dearth of organized investment groups targeting the region.

Thus far, VAAN has made just one investment in Southwest Virginia, but members say they expect the group to significantly boost entrepreneurial activity in the area.

"Most any commercialization of technology requires money, and access to money at the very early stages is necessary for moving on to the later and larger and more lucrative stages" of funding, explained Ray Smoot, chief operating officer, secretary-treasurer and VAAN representative for the Virginia Tech Foundation. "If you go to entrepreneur-intensive areas like Silicon Valley or Research Triangle and maybe Austin, Texas, you will find both individuals and some very early-stage seed capital funds that make these types of investments."

But until recently, area entrepreneurs like Matthews often had to rely on an informal network of connections.

"One person knows somebody, who then knows somebody, who then decides to invest and so they talk to some friends, who talk to another friend ... it's kind of like that," said Blacksburg resident Doug Juanarena, an early Webmail investor and current VAAN member.

This round-robin approach, while sometimes effective, wasn't all that efficient.

"One of the challenges of raising money like we did is we had a lot of one-off meetings with every angel that invested in us," Matthews said. "It was very time-consuming, and when you're raising money, you're also trying to build the company up."

The process can also prove unproductive for potential investors.

"It was hit-or-miss, and you never knew when you were sitting down to get a presentation whether the people were really ready for prime time or not," said Mike Drzal, a Charlottesville lawyer who participates in VAAN's Blacksburg-Roanoke group.

VAAN, by contrast, is nothing if not structured and organized.

Led by a pair of managing directors, the group hosts three dinners a month, one in Charlottesville, one in Blacksburg or Roanoke and one in Richmond. Members at each hear the same two 20-minute business presentations, and afterward, have the option of co-investing.

For a group deal to move forward, VAAN must raise at least $150,000 from various members.

"The appeal of it was that they would take care of a lot of the paperwork and drudgery of investing," said Wilkins.

And that, said Jeffrey Sohl, is a key reason why angel groups began popping up throughout the country.

"There was a movement [among investors] to increase deal flow and maybe increase the efficiency," said Sohl, director of the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research. The thinking was "if they had someone to screen deals and then present to a group in a room, that would be a way to encourage angel investing."

The first official groups started in the mid-1990s in New England, Silicon Valley, Calif., and Philadelphia, and Sohl said there are now 170 nationwide that differ in terms of size, focus and management style.

It took awhile for the trend to hit Southwest Virginia.

"Once you got south of say, Fredericksburg, entrepreneurs did not have access to an organized angel network," Drzal said. "There just wasn't one in what people call 'ROVA' [rest of Virginia]."

To fill the gap, VAAN Managing Directors Letitia Green and Dick Crawford began soliciting interest from individual investors.

In 2005, the group hosted its first dinner. And two years on, the network has spread into Blacksburg-Roanoke and Richmond.

Thus far, Green said VAAN members have heard more than 40 presentations and invested in seven group deals and four individual deals.

The beneficiary of one group deal is NexGenVS, a four-employee technology company in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.

Started early this year, the company hopes to eventually market and sell Vidrunner, a software application and service that allows cellphone users to stream live video to multiple viewers on other mobile devices or PCs.

NexGen President Peter Lazar said VAAN invested $150,000 toward that effort this summer.

When asked about VAAN's potential impact on Southwest Virginia, Crawford points to NextGen.

"To the extent that you can facilitate investment in promising early-stage technology companies that are located in the region, that will stimulate economic development, job development, etc." Crawford said.

"The classic example ... is NexGen: Since we funded them, they've already hired people in Blacksburg to work in the incubator with them."

It is also the only example that comes out of the Blacksburg-Roanoke region -- at least for now.

Crawford said that will likely change as VAAN develops connections with Virginia Tech, but in order to maintain a steady flow of investment-worthy deals, the group will also look at opportunities outside of its geographic footprint.

Green said the group considers deals throughout the mid-Atlantic, and at a recent dinner, presenters hailed from Richmond and Cary, N.C.

For members like Wilkins, however, the ability to support local companies is particularly important.

"Some people may pay back through charities, some people may pay back through helping people get jobs," Wilkins said. "I like to pay back through trying to help companies create jobs so that other people can bring themselves up."

How successful VAAN will be at facilitating that support remains to be seen.

"For these things to have a mature effect on a region ... it takes awhile," said Jim Flowers, director of the VT KnowledgeWorks incubator.

But "over time, that's one more brick in the structure we're building to turn the region into a more technologically vibrant economy."

"Nobody's going to be the single hero," he added, "but you need a lot of things like that, and they're certainly a very important addition to the mix."