Q4 is upon us, and it is time for the next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections Event. There were over 200 entrepreneurs and investors at our last event, and the fun fest continues on Tuesday, November 27th!
To our knowledge there have been at least 10 deals that have gotten investor traction from our first two events, including a possible $3M series-A and many, many angel deals. Of course, the relationships and connections that have been formed through the event are worth far more than the capital. However, nothing serves our cause better than to hear the successful networking stories from entrepreneurs and investors – so if you have feedback, or a story to tell, let us know!
The quarterly StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event now routinely draws a solid base of investors. Past attendees have included UPS, Imlay Investments, Croft-Bender, Southern Capitol Ventures, Chrysalis Ventures, Noro-Moseley, Atlanta Technology Angels, Smith-Hoffman Capital, Kinetic Ventures, Grotech, Leader Ventures, EGL Ventures, Monolith Capital Partners, and many others.
If you are a fast-growth entrepreneur in the Southeast U.S., or an investor who’d like to network among such innovators to scout for new deals, you won’t want to miss it.
For this next event, there will be some changes to the format:
- Based upon feedback from both entrepreneurs and investors, we are introducing something new to the event. Investors will be let in an hour or so before entrepreneurs. This will afford investors with an opportunity to network among themselves prior to the event. Additionally, the StartupLounge.com team will hand-select a group of deals that will participate in a 2-minute “fast-pitch” on the microphone. No slides, no frills. Just two minutes presenting your deal to a room full of investors. After an hour of private networking and fast-pitching with the selected deals, we’ll open the venue to all attendees. Our goal here is threefold. First, we want to provide investors an opportunity to connect with each other, in a “less frenetic” environment. Second, we want to provide our investor attendees with a quick look at a handful of fresh (qualified) deals. Finally, the benefit to the entrepreneurial community is obvious.
- Due to the logistics involved in throwing a party for 200-300 people every quarter, we are now going to close off registrations for the event a week or two before the actual event date. This will give us ample time to get name badges ready, and will allow the venue staff to prepare accordingly.
- We are capping attendance from here on out. Fortunately (and I suppose unfortunately), the CapConn events have taken on a life of their own. And this means the venue is on the brink of getting filled to capacity. This has the side-effect of making it fairly difficult to navigate the room and find deals or investors. Therefore, we’ll be capping the attendance at around 225 people. What does this mean for everyone? It means you need to sign up sooner rather than later, in order to hold your spot!
The cost is still free, of course, and the room will be free of job-seekers and service-providers. However, we are seeking a few more sponsors to augment the sponsors we currently have. If your firm (or someone you know) is interested in helping us sponsor this event each quarter, please have them get in contact with us. Service-providers are welcome sponsors – in fact, it is the only way they can get in the room.
To apply to attend as an investor or entrepreneur/company, click here.
Cheers.
I’ve been so busy with PlayMotion over the past few months that I hadn’t realized that there was a bug in PWC/MoneyTree scripts that generate the cool dashboard on my home page showing Georgia venture capital activity.
Nevertheless, 200+ entrepreneurs and investors in a room filled with gourmet crab cakes is never a bad recipe. It is probably a good thing – had the weather and traffic permitted, we would have quite likely been elbow-to-elbow. I think we may need to cap attendance at 250 or so for future events. 300 would have been brutal.
