We’ve just wrapped up our third year of doing TechStars and not only do we have some interesting companies coming out of Boulder, we also have a bunch coming out of our new Boston program as well. In all, we had 19 companies go through the program this summer. I expect at least 14 of the 2009 companies will eventually close their seed rounds, which is similar to the ratio we’ve seen in past years.
Last year we brought some of the companies with the most progress out to Silicon Valley and it was a big hit. So this year, we’re doing it again and we already have well over 100 investors registered to attend. We are taking about a dozen of this years brand new startups to Mountain View where we’ll be doing a demo day on September 30th. These are the companies who are currently raising money and that have substantial product and customer progress. We’ll also bring one or two companies from past years who are now raising follow on financing.
This isn’t your usual VC pitch event – these are fun eight minute pitches and attendees will get to see all the companies in the morning. We’ll wrap up with lunch and some networking.
If you are an accredited angel investor or VC, or if you know someone who might like to attend on the morning of September 30th, just drop me a note and I’ll be sure to get you an invitation to the event. I hope to see you there – it should be a fun day.
It would be very useful information to have a regional distribution (ZIP would be very nice, area code would be nice, state-by-state would suffice) of the individuals registered for the event. It would be a decent representation of "active" angel investors, assuming angels fly in from outside the Valley, as one would expect for such a prestigious event full of pre-qualified companies.
Comment by Sachin Agarwal — September 22, 2009 @ 3:17 am
We’ve already done events in Boulder and Boston and we have one this week in Chicago. So – I don’t think the zip code distribution we be meaningful as I expect most of the attendees will be from the bay area.
Comment by Brad Feld — September 22, 2009 @ 3:23 am
OK, understood – the number of attendees for SV, Boulder, Boston, and Chicago would be directionally useful.
Would it be possible to attend the Chicago one, just to get a feeling for it? I promise I won't be disruptive or pitch anyone. Sean from HMS can vouch for me.
Comment by Sachin Agarwal — September 23, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
200 to 300 ish. Regarding Chicago I think it is happenning tomorrow. Email me – brad@feld.com and I'll try to get you an invite.
Comment by Brad Feld — September 23, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
[...] 9/30 (Mountain View): TechStars Bay Area Demo Day: As I wrote about last week, we’re going to have our annual TechStars Bay Area Demo [...]
Pingback by Events Next Week That I’m At — September 24, 2009 @ 6:21 am
Good luck in MV, thanks for representing Boulder tech, hope you can show them how vibrant a startup community we have here.
Comment by Kyle — September 29, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
Thanks – we’ve had great turn outs the last two years and this year looks super also.
Comment by Brad Feld — September 30, 2009 @ 1:28 am