Great Turnout for April 25th Pitch Perfect – Now Help Us Move Forward

Our April 25th event was tremendous. Alex and I would like to thank everyone that participated:

Capacity, standing room-only crowd for Pitch Perfect

• The Judges – Victoria Song of Flybridge Capital (who flew down from Boston), Scott Kosch of Kosch Capital, Benoit Wirz of the Knight Foundation and Jack Karabees of CP Capital (who stepped in as a judge at the last minute to replace a no-show). Also to Willlie Morris, who was gracious enough to do our objective tally scoring.

 

• The Sponsors – Christopher & Weisberg (who have supported us from the beginning), MiamiShared (looking for space to work? check them out) and VoxMed (in of itself a startup!). Also thanks to Scotty’s Landing for some great food pre-event and a wonderful post-event venue (a special thanks to Gil Rodriguez for successfully working to find a food sponsor for Pitch Perfect).

 

• The Presenters – MiVesta, CupidRatings, The DailyCramp, Zoink and 71 lbs – well done! It’s not easy to pitch in 5 minutes – and it’s even more difficult to humbly accept commentary and critique without an opportunity to respond. We are privileged to have had you as presenters and delighted that you chose to participate.

 

• Commissioner Sarnoff and the City of Miami – We were quite honored to hold our event in historic Miami City Hall and continue to receive the support of Commissioner Sarnoff and the City. We were particularly pleased to have Commissioner Sarnoff and Vice Chair Carollo briefly address the Startups and attendees (a very special thanks to Will Plasencia for arranging the use of Miami City Hall and quarterbacking the entire logistics process).

 

• The Audience – If you attended, you know that we had a capacity crowd that was literally standing room only. Thanks to all of you that came out to hear and support the participating startups.

 

As I noted at Pitch Perfect, a core reason that we hold these events is to change the perspective (both locally and nationally) of the startup and technology environment in South Florida. Although Miami is the 4th largest metro area, we receive less than 2% of the nation’s venture capital investment. With 5 solid presenting companies and more than 170 people in attendance, Pitch Perfect has accelerated the momentum in place to change that perspective.

There’s more to do, of course. A key goal of The Startup Forum is to bring in investors (both Angel and VC) from outside the region to judge these events, in order to “showcase” the entrepreneurial ecosystem that does, in fact, exist here. To that end, we will continue to hold Pitch Perfect events on a regular basis. And that’s where we need some help.

Putting together these events is not simple – and it’s made particularly difficult by the need to find an appropriate venue. At this point, we have a “bench” of more than half a dozen investors from NYC and Silicon Valley who are prepared to fly to Miami and judge Pitch Perfect at their own expense – subject to convenient logistics. In order to accommodate them, we need to find a sponsoring venue early – so that we can work to find a mutually acceptable date.

If you have any contacts that can assist in securing a venue, please get hold of one of us and we’ll jump on it immediately.

Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement of our next Pitch Perfect – and if you are a startup consider submitting to present.

Seth Elliott

Related Posts:

• The Startup Forum partners with the Hatchery to create the Hatchery Miami.