The Portal, a nonprofit focused on workforce and economic development, recently hosted Face to Face with Investors to showcase Tech Coast Angels (TCA) funded companies and local Orange County companies at the Cove @ UCI. The event gave investors, founders, entrepreneurs, and executives a chance to learn more about different up-and-coming startups and talent emerging from the region’s burgeoning tech community. The evening included presentations from companies who shared their success stories as well as panels that featured investors from TCA, K5 Ventures, The Cove Fund and other local investment groups.
Mike Lee, director of legal and growth strategy for The Portal, welcomed everyone to begin the event. Lee gave an overview of The Portal and stated, “We want to be the portal for individuals to have the skills to access the real world. For the startup and entrepreneur community, we’ll be providing quality [and] affordable services for them to flourish.”
The first session was moderated by David Friedman of TCA and included Eric Shiffer, president of the LA TCA chapter; Ray Chan, co-founder of K5 Ventures; Paul Voois, TCA member and manager of The Cove Fund and The Cove Fund II; and Isham Suman, president of the OC TCA chapter. Friedman broke down the discussion into three parts: pre-angel funding, angel funding through due diligence and business growth after funding.
The next session featured five-minute presentations from representatives of various startups including The Portal, Templarbit, Groundmetrics, Trust and Will, Group Solver, Olukai and Vray; and session three included Voxology, Interplay Learning, Bouquet Bar and Asian Box. Each presenter introduced their company and shared tips and tricks on how to be successful.
The last session of the evening was moderated by Pete DeAngelis, member of TCA and The Cove Fund’s investment committee. Panelists David Chang, managing partner for Rets Ventures; Doug Pak, CEO of BLD Brands, LLC; Don Lin, Guoqian VC; and Amir Banifatemi, co-founder of K5 Ventures, provided their insights from the perspective of family offices, international VCs from China and local VCs.
Face to Face with Investors is a chance for investors and entrepreneurs to connect and push the OC tech community forward by sharing insights, techniques, tips, and tricks and everything in between that has helped them get to where they are now. To learn more about future events at the Cove @ UCI, visit http://innovation.uci.edu/events/.