San Diego Venture Group
April 20, 2018 — San Diego Venture Group, a nonprofit association with a mission to support and promote the venture capital and startup company ecosystem in the San Diego region, is in full swing of its annual Cool Companies program.
Each year, SDVG opens applications to the community, gathering hundreds of the most exciting businesses, ready to raise Seed, Series A and Series B funding. Then with an expert selection committee sourced from the community, SDVG picks the top 30 to 40 companies with greatest potential and revolutionary to their industry — and dubs them ‘cool.’ Startups selected to be Cool Companies are invited to attend private settings with Venture Capitalists.
SDVG’s Cool Companies from 2016 and 2017 have collectively since raised over $100M. In terms of companies attracting capital, the 30 SDVG Cool Companies of 2017 outperformed the 200 companies in last year’s TechCrunch program in San Francisco.
“SDVG is laser focused on making an impact for regional startups. While Silicon Valley programs can cost companies upwards of $2,000 to display their wares, for example, the Cool Company program costs absolutely nothing for startups” said Mike Krenn, President of SDVG.
“Last year alone, we brought more than 150 VCs to San Diego to meet with selected startup companies. An outrageously amazing number.”
SDVG invites Venture Capitalists from all over the country to attend the exclusive VC Roadtrip in the June and Venture Summit in August. Events are curated on both sides of the experience and meet in the middle for structured startup-investor ‘speed-dating,’ pitching and demos, and one-on-one meetings. Last year’s Venture Summit hosted Keynote, Bill Maris, founder of Google Ventures and the new SoCal VC Firm, Section 32, and drew more than 800 people for the general sessions.
Past Cool Companies include: EcoATM, Seismic, Tealium, Empyr, TakeLessons, Edico Genome, Cordial, Wrapify, Skysafe, Cloudbeds, eSub, PetDesk, Guru, Doctible, LoanHero, Measurabl, Nanocellect, Zesty, Attack IQ, Lymber, Mindtouch, and Forge Therapeutics.
San Diego Venture Group is uniquely positioned as 100% neutral in the regional marketplace. The group takes no equity, and takes no fees from either startups or investors, with all the work they do. With an extremely lean team, and a working volunteer board, the group is making a meaningful impact in the regional economy.