The event is designed to replicate a fund raising meeting with angel groups or individual investors. We host these meetings to ensure that lifestyle or technology startups are sufficiently prepared for the rigorous due diligence process they will encounter during their funding campaigns.
 
Format: 8 minute presentations, followed by 8 minutes of panel feedback. Panelists will review   submitted data in advance to avoid "cold" feedback on your firm. After panel feedback, we will allocate 4 minutes for audience comments and questions.  
 
Please note that we have broadened our product offering to include gratis marketing support to pitching companies. We recently entered into an agreement with a marketing organization that will provide a post-presentation gratis consultation to firms that request it.  
 
Kristin Calve is the Founder of Topstone Angels, a private investment group specializing in early & mid-stage companies across multiple sectors. Topstone plays a key role in supporting the activities of women entrepreneurs. It is a member of the Angel Capital Association, which is comprised of angel groups and private investors which invest in high growth firms. Kristin is also a serial entrepreneur, with extensive experience in traditional and new media. 

Barry Kolevzon is Executive Director and screening committee member of National Business Investment Forums (previously known as New York Private Equity Forums), the largest fund-raising forum in the northeast. Further, he is Managing Partner of the advisory firm Nessa Group, which helps companies to attain profit improvement. Focal areas include funding strategies, sales & marketing, human capital, and operations.

John Hempill is a Partner at Sheppard Mullin in the Corporate Practice Group. He has extensive experience in private and public finance, representing private emerging growth companies, venture capital funds, and strategic investors in seed rounds and later stage private financings. He has advised clients in both acquisitions and dispositions of companies and lines of business, as well as in other types of negotiated business combinations.

Bruce Crawford, Founder of the Entrepreneur Forum, will serve as moderator. Prior to founding the Forum in 2008, he was Co-Head of Ratings Advisory at Salomon Smith Barney, where his primary responsibility was preparing corporations for bond rating presentations to agencies. Previously, he was a Director in Corporate Finance at Standard & Poor's, responsible for firms in the automotive, chemical, energy, and pharmaceutical industries.