10 Startups
7 Judges
2 Minutes to Pitch
An audience of Investors, Entrepreneurs and Enthusiasts
Clear your calendar - It's going down! The Indiana University Alumni Association of New York City invites you to the first annual "The Pitch NYC" kicking off on November 17th. The event is open to all - IU Alumni and non-IU Alumni. Come one, come all, bring a guest, and hang loose. This is going to be epic!
The Pitch NYC is an event featuring ten startups pitching their ideas/companies to a panel of judges, who will then critique the startups’ pitches and their business plan. Each startup interested in competing in the event will have less than two minutes to convince the judges why an investor should invest in their company. Participants will then undergo Q&A by the panel of five judges of various backgrounds, including leaders in technology, experts in business or managers of local venture capital or private equity firms. Investors and interested parties in the audience will have the opportunity to approach the startups at the networking opportunities before and after the pitch event. The winning startup presentation will be awarded customized advisory services with Cyrus Innovation and a $1,000 grant provided by the IUAA NYC Chapter. Beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and light fare will be provided.
Andrew is recovering consultant turned serial entrepreneur, startup mentor and angel investor. He is the Managing Director for Dreamit’s New York program. Andrew is also a contributing writer to AlleyWatch.com, a leading destination for startup news in New York City. Andrew began his career at Booz & Co consulting on strategy and operations for Fortune 100 clients. After a brief stint at Kaplan helping transition their traditional classroom test prep services into online products, he then joined Bunk1.com as COO/Head of Product where he spent eight years building it from scratch to the leading provider of web services to the summer camp industry. After being bought out of Bunk1 in 2008, Andrew managed a family office where he was responsible for both incubating new ventures and for managing over $50M of alternative assets including hedge, private equity, and venture capital funds as well as a number of direct investments in private companies. Andrew was also the founding CEO of Layercake.com and has a keen appreciation for how hard it is to build a successful startup, even under the best of circumstances. He speaks Hebrew fluently as well as some Spanish, French, Japanese and JavaScript.
Claudia Iannazzo is a general partner with Pereg Ventures, based in New York, investing in early stage marketing, advertising and analytics businesses. Over a 20-year career spanning 5 continents, Claudia has facilitated more than $10 billion of investments, acquisitions, divestments, IPOs, alliances and partnerships for public companies and new ventures around the globe. Having founded several companies in Australia, the UK, and the US, Claudia has continued to work with entrepreneurs helping them create effective sales, marketing and business strategies to attract multinational clients, investment and acquisition interest. Prior to her career in venture, Claudia led strategic alliances, acquisition and turnaround activities for two Australian advertising giants, Tabcorp Holdings (Australia’s largest gaming, entertainment and hospitality company) and Foster’s Group (Australia’s leading brewer and winemaker). She has also held executive commercial positions within several multinational technology companies, including as Head of Commercial for Infosys Technologies (Australia/ New Zealand) and BAE Systems Limited (Weapons Systems division).
Jessica Peltz is a Madison Avenue veteran turned venture capitalist at kbs+ Ventures, where she focuses on early stage investments in startups looking to transform the media and advertising industry. She's been named one of NYC's 100 Most Influential People in Tech, and has been featured on CNBC, Fox Business, and popular podcast ThePitchDeck. In addition to being a bi-coastal mentor at top accelerators including UpWest Labs in SF and Entrepreneurs Roundtable in NYC, Jessica has a global footprint and has developed strategic relationships with over 200+ startup organizations across 20+ countries worldwide.
Derek Pacqué is the founder of CoatChex, as seen on Shark Tank, and CEO of Chexology, a Midtown SaaS Company. A bootstrapper, Derek turned a $500 investment into over $50,000 within 6 months, changing a service based business into a mobile application platform before raising over a million dollars in seed capital. He has been featured in a variety of media outlets such as Bloomberg, MSNBC, Fox Business, Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Insider and listed as one of Forbes' Up and Comers.
Peter Margulies caught the Entrepreneurial bug early, while a Freshman at IU in 2005. He and his co-founder launched BtownMenus.com, the premiere online menu guide for students, faculty, and residents of Bloomington. After building BtownMenus.com to over $6 million in revenue after 6 years, Peter was ready to go even bigger. He co-founded Jibe.com, a venture-backed SaaS HR platform in 2009, with the former COO of Insomnia Cookies. Peter left Jibe after almost 4 years of building the company, took some much needed time off, and joined Percolate in 2012 as employee #25. After 3 years at Percolate, he recently joined betaworks to lead one of the studio startups to come out of their Hacker in Residence program.
Shayne Veramallay is the Head of DLA Piper's Venture Pipeline group. This DLA Piper business unit is specifically focused on enhancing the funding prospects of early and growth stage ventures. Led by non-lawyers with experience in technology, start-ups and capital markets, the Venture Pipeline actively advises on strategic business issues that are critical to funding. Mr. Veramallay's background has been centered around finance and operations - a private equity placement agent, generalist venture capitalist, start-up manager, and platform integration team leader with experience in IT, enterprise software, cleantech, nanotechnology, advanced materials, biotech, and life sciences. Shayne advises emerging growth technology companies on various aspects of their business strategies, including capital structure, financial modeling, management/recruiting issues, market development, strategic partnerships, and financing alternatives.
Raju Narisetti (IU MA 1991) is Senior Vice President, Strategy, for News Corp, responsible for acquisitions and global growth opportunities. A 26-year veteran of the news and information industry, he is founder of India's second-largest business newspaper Mint (www.livemint.com); a former Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and of The Washington Post; and The Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (Class of 2007) and a Trustee of Institute of International Education and International Center for Journalists. He lives in Brooklyn and is often found @Raju.
The Pitch NYC 2015 presented by IUAA NYC creates unique experiences and opportunities for its corporate partners. All sponsorship packages are customized to meet prospective sponsor’s goals. Specific plans can be developed to meet individual sponsor needs. In addition to marketing benefits, onsite exposure and exclusive invitations, each sponsorship package includes tickets for entertaining at The Pitch NYC.
If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities for The Pitch NYC 2015 presented by IUAA NYC, please contact IUAA NYC at IUAA.NYC@gmail.com.
Cyrus provides growing companies with the Agile Reinforcement they need to build more features, better products, and more productive teams. Our senior developers work with software teams at companies of all sizes in NYC to deliver clean code at a sustainable pace. Cyrus is the best place for women in NYC to transform their ideas into great products. We want quality code and minimal technical debt to be accessible to everyone. Our discipline is to solve problems quickly, reinforce efficient practices, and craft scalable code. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or leading a team, we want to help you reach your milestones faster and in a more predictable way.
Kaltura is the leading video technology provider and creator of the world’s only Video-Platform-as-a-Service. Kaltura VPaaS is a highly reliable, scalable, and flexible open video platform, powering hundreds of thousands of video experiences and workflows across industries in over 100 countries worldwide. A recognized leader in the OTT TV (Over the Top TV), OVP (Online Video Platform), EdVP (Education Video Platform) and EVP (Enterprise Video Platform) markets, Kaltura is used by thousands of global enterprises, media companies, service providers, educational institutions, start-ups, technology platforms and cloud providers and engages hundreds of millions of viewers at home, in work, and at school. The company is also the initiator and backer of the leading open source video management project, home to more than 100,000 community members. For more information visit www.kaltura.com, www.kaltura.org, or www.html5video.org.
Runa is a Brooklyn-based social enterprise that brews beverages from the guayusa (pronounced “gwhy-you-sa”) super-leaf and improves the livelihoods of Amazonian farming families through its supply chain. When brewed, guayusa has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, double the antioxidants of leading green tea products, and a smooth, clean taste. Revered by indigenous communities for centuries, guayusa is also consumed by native hunters before venturing in to the jungle at night. Made from a leaf, not from a lab, Runa is “clean energy” that powers you through your day. Runa supports over 2,700 farming families and is pioneering a new way of doing business in the Amazon. Runa’s products are sold in over 6,000 stores across the country, and are an effective alternative to the legions of artificial beverages and energy drinks on the market.
HowDidIDo enables people to effectively communicate their ideas and achieve their desired results and relationships. Thoughts to words. Ideas to impact. Intelligent inspiration. Their mission is to create true value for individuals and organizations – enabling them to achieve goals by helping them craft and perfect the way they express themselves. The HowDidIDo system empowers all partners to reposition their ideas in order to achieve the desired results.This can be done through process-oriented training, interactive tutorials, one-on-one consultation or dialogue facilitation. HowDidIDo is a global communications authority dedicated to empowering its partners along their path towards achieving the goals they have defined. Measurable, method-based and modular, HowDidIDo is an innovator and inspirer.
Sixpoint Brewery acknowledges the history of the craft, while forging ahead to create new styles. The forging ahead is symbolically demonstrated in their logo, where the ancient brewer's star has been influenced by the nautical star to create an entirely unique creation, the Sixpoint Brewery star. The original brewery, located one block from the waterfront in Red Hook, Brooklyn, is rife with maritime history. The nautical star was a navigational device for seagoing travelers during their nighttime voyages. Just as the stars navigated them to their destination, the Sixpoint star navigates you to good beer.