At a conference last December that I attended for a few minutes, I heard Tino Mantella mention a Venture Atlanta conference that they (they being the Atlanta CEO Council, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and TAG I think) were planning to hold this year. I held off discussing this event until they had a website which they now have.
I’m not entirely sure what the goal is here although the tag line implies that this conference’s goal will be to introduce (Georgia?) startups to venture investors. From the looks of the sponsorship package, the group is looking to raise a bit of money ($5k, $10k, and $20k sponsorships are available) - probably to pay for the facilities (it’s being held at the OMNI Hotel downtown).
As a little bit of a pre-announce, I’m hoping to organize a somewhat similar event this year. Some of the goals of this event will be the same as Venture Atlanta, but some will be vastly different. I’ll post additional details here as this develops.
Regardless, this increasing focus on the community and community building is certainly a great development and hopefully it’ll help spawn some great companies in Atlanta, the Southeast, and the East Coast.
Thanks for your remarks. And, I concur wholeheartedly. This is a great opportunity to showcase GA companies while bringing in investors from around the USA (and maybe beyond). It will take a few years to build, but I hope that this unified community effort will call more attention to GA. A couple of weeks ago I attended the Florida Venture Forum with 1,100 others. It was quite a program as is CED’s in NC and MAVA in Virginia. There is no reason why we can’t have the best of the best. I hope everyone will support this event and the new ED, Allyson Eman.
Tino