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Steven Smith is at a point in his entrepreneurial career where he can dance with the financial angels.

Not that he’ll need much elbow room, at least in Greater Des Moines. The kind of investment capital that helps new businesses grow and old businesses survive is bowing out of the area – just don’t tell Smith.

“There are a lot of angel investors, tons of them. It depends on how you frame the discussion,” said Smith, co-founder of GCommerce Inc., which untangles supply-chain knots through computer software applications.

Smith grew up in Hawaii, graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa and entered the business world in New York City. When he moved GCommerce to Des Moines in 2004, he took advantage of state tax incentives for business development and the investments of a few angels.

Count his wife, Marina, among them. Local businessman Gary Kirke was another, although Smith might quibble about whether Kirke was an angel or simply a shrewd investor who determined that Smith, with a company already generating revenues, was an investment risk he could afford to take. A Silicon Valley venture capital firm was another.

Iowa counts on a number of government-supported programs to bring investors and businesses together. Many of those find the majority of their participants from outside the state.

Private groups or pools of angel investors are common on the coasts, and even in St. Louis. A pool consisting of angel investors from Greater Des Moines would be fairly shallow.

Kirke, who is referred to as the “captain” but might as easily be called the general of Greater Des Moines entrepreneurship, is one of few names that enter the conversation about Greater Des Moines angels. Kirke, on the other hand, says he’s rarely an angel but always has an eye out for a good investment.

Jim Cownie, a co-founder of Heritage Communications Inc. who sold the company and found financial success as a real estate titan, is another. John Pappajohn is the third.

They are not alone, but they are the most often mentioned.

Kirke said he held a 1 percent interest in GCommerce after it moved to Des Moines. And although Kirke is no longer invested in the company, his son, Charles, does have a seat on its board.

Adam Claypool, managing director of DeWaay Investment Banking, which is creating its own pool of investors in funds that will be managed by the Clive company, said it is not uncommon for investors such as Kirke to want a board seat or to request additional involvement in the companies they help.

More than an investor

Kirke’s entrepreneurial skills are invaluable to a company, Claypool said. Yet other investors are willing to ride out their investment with no role in the operation of their beneficiaries.

For his part, Kirke said most people know he is willing to consider a good investment. His interests are broad; he has a keen eye for changes in lifestyle and changes in the economy.

Some of his decisions, such as his role in the resurrection of Iowa-grown Maid-Rite Corp., result from the fact that he grew up liking a product, especially one from his own state.

“You see a lot of that in Gary and how dedicated he is to Iowa,” Smith said. “He’s all Iowa, 100 percent.”

Kirke’s investment interests can grow out of a practical need, too. For example, he invested in a medical supplies company that would benefit from a relationship with a manufacturer of carbon fiber products. He invested in that company, Quatro Composites of Orange City, which now supplies carbon fiber products to the airline industry, is a qualified supplier for Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliners and, at one time, produced surfboards, bicycles and hockey sticks.

Real estate is another of his fancies. He developed Glen Oaks and West Glen Town Center in West Des Moines.

Kirke said his turn as an investor has largely been motivated by the fact that after he and partner Bill Van Orsdel sold Kirke-Van Orsdel Inc., he did not want to retire.

“I’d go crazy if I retired,” Kirke said. “My theory has been to reset my goals higher than the previous ones achieved.”

The exception to the rule

Kirke, Cownie and Pappajohn are not the only angels in Greater Des Moines. There are others, such as Smith, who are making a mark.

Still, the majority of investors in Smith’s GCommerce are from outside Iowa. In terms of just the number of investors, about 40 percent are from California and 30 percent are from Iowa. The Smiths have about a 5 percent stake in the company.

Claypool of DeWaay Investment Banking noted that 10 years ago there seemed to be more people in Greater Des Moines willing to provide seed money for start-up businesses.

“The real story is that there must be more seed money, more angel funds,” he said. “Why have they stopped investing now?”

DeWaay wants to be part of the “ecosystem” in pulling angel investors into the area, Claypool said.

Tom Steen, whose Transition Capital Management helps young businesses, or even people with big ideas but no business sense, find the resources to get off the ground, said there has been a “flight from risk” over the last three or four years.

“People have been running from risk for longer than we like to admit,” he said. “With a flight from risk, there is a flight from small companies.”

Part of that flight has been fueled by the slumping economy.

Smith also noted that angel investing is not part of the current culture in Greater Des Moines.

“On the West Coast, with their bands of angels, successful people put their money to work in start-ups. Here, there isn’t that kind of expectation,” he said.

Eric Lohmeier, managing director of investment banking firm NCP Inc. in Des Moines, also counts himself as an angel, one who bemoans the lack of raw investment capital coming out of the area.

“Today capital is so scarce that nothing is happening,” he said. “The big companies don’t even know if they can get their lines of credit going.

“Is there kind of a void in angel capital? Yes, absolutely.”