Phew. What a week.
The 2019 VentureSouth Summit was another step up in ambition for VentureSouth and Venture Carolina.
The pictures tell the story, and we’ve crunched the numbers to see how it went.
16 sessions and 20 hours of content over two days – 7 educational events, 3 fund investor meetings, 2 portfolio company update sessions, several networking sessions – plus a full VentureSouth monthly angel investor meeting.
Over 200 participants – 150 angel investors, 50 entrepreneurs getting educated, 21 companies presenting to investors, and sponsors, educators, and speakers, plus the full VentureSouth team.
The feedback has been tremendous – capital committed to new and existing VentureSouth portfolio companies, entrepreneurs prepared for raising money, thank you wine distributed, and at least 10 jokes delivered at the expense of our board chair.
The stats are one thing. What were the highlights?
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For Charlie: The highlight of the 2017 Summit was Gabby’s presentation about GaBBY Bows. The highlight this year was Gabby’s update – they’re now in Target! – and repeat performance of applying the bow to Dan’s luxuriant locks.
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For Paul: As a data fan, my favorite slide was Matt’s analysis of whether our diligence system predicts investment outcomes. Angel investing is, of course, art not science, but having data on your science might be is always interesting: it turns out, our “method” does help in this “madness”!
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For Kevin: I enjoyed the screening meeting with live investor feedback and post-presentation Q&A, and entrepreneur and investor mix at the education sessions helped better exchange of ideas and feedback.
If you were there, we would love to hear your highlights – and learn what we can do better so that the 2020 Summit is another step up!
And if not, keep your calendar clear for December 2 and 3 in 2020.