Start-ups meet investors at Pitch Day

Venture capital in action for LSE students

Friday 16 March 2018

The Department of Finance hosted its inaugural Venture Capital Pitch Day on Thursday 15th March 2018.

Venture Capital Pitch Day, 2018

Investor panel, left to right: Tara Reeves (LocalGlobe); Andrei Brasoveanu (Accel) Thomas Reubens (DN Capital); and Felda Hardymon (Bessemer Venture Partners).

The event, co-chaired and curated by Professor Felda Hardymon and Professor Daniel Paravasini, saw eight start-up companies pitch to a panel of four renowned investors from venture firms Accel, DN Capital, LocalGlobe and Bessemer.

As well as an opportunity for start-ups to meet investors, the Pitch Day was a chance for theory to meet practice for students of the FM476 Entrepreneurial Finance course who were tasked with observing and grading these real-life company pitches as part of their final course assessment. Attended by 92 students from across the Departments of Finance, Accounting, and Management, the event provided a unique insight into the world of venture capital and a chance to see what makes a successful pitch.

Yau Lim from the MSc Finance said, “this gives us direct, first-hand experience of something students have not seen before: real business.”

Global Master’s in Management student, Lale Erel, added, “this is a chance for us to see the real application of what we covered in the course. I’ve never seen real interaction between VCs and start-ups before.”

Each seven-minute pitch was followed by four minutes of Q&A from the investor panel, made up of Andrei Brasoveanu (Accel); Tara Reeves (LocalGlobe); Thomas Reubens (DN Capital); and the Department’s own Felda Hardymon (Bessemer Venture Partners).

The start-ups taking part included tech companies focused on areas as diverse as travel, pharmaceuticals, media and security.

The full list of start-ups and CEOs who took part in the event includes:

Iain Griffin (Seatfrog)
Sohrab Jahanbani (Bidvine)
Jason Lacombe (Veratrak)
Jake Schofield (Labstep)
James Pringle (Suggestv)
Ben Hookway (Relative Insight)
Alex Housley (Seldon)
Sergio Pozo Hidalgo (Intelliment Security

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