With a sold-out theatre of more than 175 attendees and intense community excitement leading up to the event, VentureSpur’s inaugural Dallas Pitch Day occurred on October 30, 2013 at the Inwood Theatre in Dallas, Texas.

The audience included venture capital partners with more than $2Bn of investable capital across more than a dozen firms, as well as more than 100 angel investors, entrepreneurs, mentors and supporters.

The crowd came out to hear from all seven of the 2013 VentureSpur startups, and they delivered!

The event featured investment and product pitches from the seven startup companies, which are focused on educational technology, consumer marketing, and e-commerce platforms.

The event also included a discussion panel featuring chief technologists from four of the nation’s most innovative tech companies, who discussed upcoming trends in both consumer and enterprise computing.

Dallas Pitch Day is the culmination of VentureSpur’s 2013 acceleration program, and follows its sister event in Oklahoma City, where the accelerator also has an office, which was held on Oct. 23rd and also featured the seven 2013 startups.

Pitch Day offers the venture capital, angel investor and startup community an opportunity to hear from these highly competitive start-ups, to recognize the effort of these founders, and to celebrate entrepreneurship.

The CTO panel discussion included Vincent Button, Director of Innovation at Alcatel-Lucent at the AT&T Innovation Center, who is focused on open APIs, 4G LTE wireless, and user collaboration; Nathan Day, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Softlayer Technologies, an IBM company, who is focused on cloud and virtualization technologies; Cameron Evans, the first national technology officer (NTO) and CTO of Microsoft Education and is in charge of Microsoft technology strategy for U.S. education; and Eric Schoch, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Systems’ Hosted Collaboration Business Unit.

The panel was organized and moderated by Joel Fontenot, Managing Partner of Trailblazer Capital and an entrepreneurial leader with a background in network innovation.

During the startup pitches, the companies delivered 10 minutes pitches and answered questions, bringing the passion of entrepreneurship and innovation to the Dallas stage with pitches focused on their technology and growth strategy, what they had accomplished during the 12-week acceleration program, product demonstrations, and discussion of their future plans.

Highlights from the pitches included software launches from all seven companies, who had used their seed investment and time in the accelerator to develop a beta version or a public launch version of their product.

For more detailed information on the 2013 startups, visit our Fund II page.

2013 VentureSpur Startups:

	LittleFish provides affinity groups, especially college alumni associations, with tools to track the individual interests of their members through social media data mining and taxonomic analysis, and to build more meaningful connections. For more information, visit www.getlittlefish.com.
	SIVI is a subscription-based e-learning platform for aspiring entrepreneurs and startups. SIVI’s LaunchLeader product combines engaging design and challenges to reward entrepreneurs with tangible resources.For more information, visit www.sivi.com.
	SPARXlife is an EdTech platform that helps people discover a sense of their purpose in life and matches them with learning and career opportunities that fit. For more information, visit www.sparxlife.com.
	HAUL is a video e-commerce platform that helps online reviewers – “haulers” – who influence millions of buyers daily through their video reviews, to monetize and grow their brand. For more information, visit www.haul.tv.
	Zalongo provides families with a truly private social network that is exclusively for coordinating family events and for sharing memories and messages. For more information, visit www.zalongo.com.
	OrderMyGear provides a co-branded e-commerce platform for distributors to make ordering and fulfillment of sports team apparel and equipment faster, easier and less expensive. For more information, visit www.ordermygear.com.
	TogaBOX is a platform to allow consumers to organize the flow of email and other messages from their favorite online vendors while enhancing the relationship between brands and consumers. For more information, visit www.togabox.com.

About VentureSpur

VentureSpur is a seed fund and venture accelerator located in Oklahoma City. The accelerator provides startups with seed investment, a 12-week “boot camp,” mentorship from successful entrepreneurs, office space, free services and access to venture capital, in exchange for equity. For more information, visit www.VentureSpur.com.

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Kraettli Lawrence Epperson

Managing Director at JumpPhase Ventures

This blog is dedicated to providing advice, tools and encouragement from one entrepreneur to another. I want to keep this practical and accessible for the new entrepreneur while also providing enough sophistication and depth to prove useful to the successful serial entrepreneur. My target rests somewhere between the garage and the board room, where the work gets done and the hockey stick emerges.

Latest posts by Kraettli Lawrence Epperson (see all)

• The Entrepreneurial Journey: Interview with Our Founder Kraettli L. Epperson - October 12, 2024
• Do entrepreneurs do their own taxes? - August 31, 2019
• A venture capital firm asks to interview you; What do you do? - August 31, 2019