Update Friday May 27, 2022 - full video available

Day 1:

Day 2:



Meeting the Venture Capital Fundraisers

The inside.com "Meet Our Fund 3" webinar pulled a reverse uno and hosted a conference for Fundraisers to pitch to Start-Ups on Monday and Tuesday May 23, 24. The event gave us a chance to spread our wings and learn more the role of venture capital in the software, technology, AI, robotics, and the manufacturing space. No one speaker was the same! There was a diverse mix of panelists from all walks of life outlining their ideal candidates, the people they've invested in, their values, and their processes for generating success.





See what's out there, learn who's behind it.

It's easy to forget with the tools and services we use everyday that there are always people behind them. Seeing them in person, hearing about their firms, and being able to ask questions directly was a huge opportunity. It's so easy to get carried away with the blinders on at work. Having a couple of days to immerse myself with trends, technologies, and the resourcing behind them was a welcomed change.

The speakers really filled in knowledge gaps for effectively resourcing technical development initiatives, and the stages at which to do so. There's far too much wisdom to impart onto a single post and - to avoid playing favourites - I'll just jot down some of the more important takeaways from the event:

• VC firms tend to specialize in a specific domain, or set of domains (business administration, environment, AI/ML, space). Research them thoroughly to see if there's a fit.
• Pitches can happen at any stage of a products life cycle.
• A lot of firms really emphasize team building. Demonstrating the ability to orchestrate a group of people to achieve a complex, or innovative task, could be more than a bulletproof concept.
• Having a bullet proof concept is also really good.

At the end of the day, these are just people who are interested in you, and want to invest in your success. After all this front-loading to get our enterprise site operational (acorninteractive.ca - tell your friends), it's nice to be venturing out and getting to know the neighbours.

Coming up next?

Event - #vtjtalks: Scaling From Idea to $1M -10M | Our Takeaways on the Event

List of speakers & Twitter Handles

Is this list missing details? Need to have a correction made? Did we get it right? Please contact info@acorninteractive.ca with revisions!

Animal Capital (link)

Marshall Sandman - @MarshallSandman

Irrvrnt VC (link)

Andrew Gluck - @irrvrntVC

Ganas VC (link)

Lolita Taub - @lolitataub

Signalfire VC (link)

Chris Farmer - @chriswfarmer

Elaine Zelby - @ezelby

Space VC (link)

Jonathan Lacoste - @lacostejonathan

1517 (link)

Danielle Strachman - @DStrachman

11 Tribes (link)

Mark Phillips - @maphilli

Techstars (link)

John Hill - n/a

Saba Karimm - @sabakarimm

Kimberly Smith - n/a

Neal Sáles-Griffin - @nealsales

Steamwork VC (link)

Tania Mulry - @taniamulry

Base 10 Partners (link)

Ajani Smith-Washington - @Ajani_Barake

Vitalize VC (link)

Gale Wilkinson - @galeforceVC

Moxxie Ventures (link)

Katie Jacobs Stanton - @KatieS

Rare Breed VC (link)

Mac Conwell - @MacConwell

Brooklyn Bridge VC (link)

Charlie O'Donnell - @ceonyc

Starting Line VC (link)

Ezra Galston - @EzraMoGee

Visible Hands (link)

Daniel Acheampong - @dpong

Bloomberg Beta (link)

Roy E. Bahat - @roybahat

Thomson Reuters Ventures (link)

Joseph Dormani - @JoeDormani_VC

Initialized VC (link)

Jen Wolf - n/a

Responsibly Ventures (link)

Zecca Lehn - @Zecca_Lehn

Bain Capital Ventures (link)

Zeeza Cole - @ZeezaCole

Organizers

Stephanie Zielinski - @StephZielinski

Landon Campbell - @landon20s

Jason Calacanis - @Jason