Recap: Early Stage East Venture Wars Pitches at Morgan Lewis
Entrepreneurs from the region gathered together this Tuesday, September 16th to pitch their companies for guidance and coaching in front of Steve Bowmanthe “Pitch doctor” from Biz Clarity. Leading the event was VC David Freschman, managing principal of Innovation Capital Advisors. “These twelve companies are the cream of the crop when it comes early stage tech startups.” Said Freschman as he spoke about the upcoming Early Stage East Venture Wars where 12 companies will pitch and 12 VCs will also pitch about their funds. “This is their chance to wow top VCs and get them to open their checkbooks.”
The 12 companies were split up into various conference rooms at Morgan Lewis who was kind enough to not only host the event but also provide ample food and drinks throughout the day. Each company was given seven minutes to pitch their product along with a PowerPoint presentation. They received criticism as well as advice and suggestions from everyone else in the room. One of the coaches was Nathaniel Brinn of Vital Venture Capital, who has seen entrepreneurs pitch many times before. “These ideas are really interesting, and it’s great to see CEO’s with such passion behind their companies.” Said Brinn of the quality of companies attending the event.
After the coaching, there was a break for lunch where everyone was able to network, mingle, and discuss how their pitches went. There were some presentations from attorneys from Morgan Lewis about Crowdfunding, and SEC regulations that were quite informative. Then the companies were given some time to fix up their presentations according to the suggestions and advice that were given to them in the first pitch. After that, everyone was able to pitch one more time with all of their corrections, and the overall outcome seemed to be very positive among all of the entrepreneurs and coaches.
The Early Stage East Venture Wars will be held October 2 at the historic Marriott in Philadelphia where everyone will pitch on stage. It will be extremely valuable experience where all the entrepreneurs will have exhibition tables as well as being able to pitch on stage in front of VCs to hopefully get an investment and walk away with a check.
