NTXRCIC Launches First Technology Pitch Day
Dallas, TX - The North Texas RCIC hosted their first technology “Pitch Day” event on Thursday, November 17, 2011. The event hosted and sponsored by Microsoft at the Innovation Center in Irving, Texas consisted of four early state technology companies presenting to a crowd of over 45 members from the investment community. Attendees heard pitches from four technology based companies seeking pre-seed dollars through to series B round raises.
Then North Texas RCIC launched the technology pitch series to provide a platform for entrepreneurs with scalable technology based start-ups to present to a group of investors that are actively investing in companies. The audience consisted of investors from angel groups, NTAN, CTAN, West Texas angels and Baylor Angel Network, individual angels and Venture Capital firms, Austin Ventures, Ballast Point Ventures, Dallas Venture Partners, Naya Ventures, Pillar Capital, Silver Creek Ventures, Star Ventures, and TrailBlazer Capital.
The state of Texas has invested over $314 million in equity into over 133 companies across the State through the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). One of the goals of the North Texas RCIC is to provide opportunities for early stage technology companies (not only ETF funded companies) to secure additional funding from investors. Prior to the event, the North Texas RCIC screened and mentored the early stage companies, worked with the investor community to determine what deals would interest them, determined how to provide feedback to the start-up companies based off of their investor pitch and provided the medium for investors to schedule follow-up meeting with companies for possible investment.
The NTXRCIC screened over 60 deals, presented 12 companies to our regional evaluators with four companies passing all stages of the process to present at “Pitch Day”. Post the event all companies will receive a summary of the comments and suggestions from investors on how to improve their company and or engage with investor. Each presenting company had several investors express interest in follow-up meetings to learn more about the startup company.