Get Funded at the Rice Alliance I.T. and Web 2.0 Venture Forum

I received an email from Marc Nathan over at the Houston Technology Center reminding me that the Rice Alliance is having their annual I.T. and Web 2.0 Venture Forum on Thursday, Nov. 8th.

Actually, as recently as last year it was known as just the I.T. Venture forum, but this year it appears that they have added Web 2.0 as an additional focus.  I think it goes to show just how far Houston’s startup community has come along in the past few months that they have added Web 2.0 as part of the title.

Some other important notes:

• The deadline to apply is Friday, Sept. 21st.  You can apply by emailing your 2-page non-confidential executive summary to tvforum@rice.edu
• There are three parts to the Forum: 
  • The Elevator Pitch – Up to 60 companies will be chosen to participate in this and if you do nothing else, I would sign up for the opportunity to do this one thing.  This portion alone gives you the opportunity to give a 90-second elevator pitch to an audience of several hundred people, including many different VC companies, potential partners, and potential clients.  It is great exposure all the way around and I encourage everyone who has a solid business plan and a good presentation to sign up.
  • The Business Plan Presentation – 5 of the 60 companies will be chosen to give a 10 minute presentation of their business plan to a panel of VC companies and get their feedback.  I’ve been to a couple of these in the past and the feedback I’ve heard given is always very insightful and relevant.
  • The Showcase – Up to 40 companies will be selected to have a table presence, trade show style, in the showcase.

Here are some final thoughts from the Rice Alliance email:  “All information technology and Web 2.0 companies that are seeking funding or planning to seek funding, seeking visibility with potential customers, and/or seeking other kinds of business support are encouraged to apply.  Participation in any of the three categories provides tremendous opportunities to showcase your company to a large group of industry participants, investors, service providers, mentors and entrepreneurs.  A number of companies that have presented at this event in the past have subsequently raised outside funding and/or acquired customers through this event.  Attendance at past Information Technology Venture Forums has averaged over 375 participants.”

For some reason, the Rice Alliance does not have this event posted on their website yet, so if you want to see all of rest of the details, you can click here to download the pdf I made from the email.