Bullpen Capital, Vator and Venture51 to Host the Post Seed Conference in SF

December 2 event to gather venture capitalists, early-stage founders and startup press for discussion on "Post-Seed," the gap between seed financing and Series A rounds

News provided by

Bullpen Capital

Oct 21, 2014, 09:38 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois, Andreessen Horowitz's Chris Dixon and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant will be the keynote speakers at the Post Seed Conference, a one-day event that gathers investors, entrepreneurs and the startup press for a discussion on early-stage financing. Hosted by Bullpen Capital, Venture51 and Vator, Post Seed, (formerly known as Venture Shift), will take place in San Francisco on December 2, 2014, at the Cowell Pavilion in Fort Mason.

Although startup founders have more seed-stage financing options than ever before, venture capital firms now choose to write big checks much later in a company's life cycle, creating a post-seed gap that can be especially challenging terrain for startups. The Post Seed Conference will gather some of the best and brightest minds in the startup world to discuss this trend and share practical advice for early-stage startups. Major sponsors for the event include Silicon Legal Strategy.

Speakers and topics from the conference include:

How are leading early-stage VCs thinking about this gap, and navigating through it? Listen to Keith Rabois, investment partner at Khosla Ventures and former executive at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and Square and Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and co-founder of Hunch, Founder Collective and SiteAdvisor
Crowdfunding platforms are helping to create this gap. Can they help to provide needed capital to fill it? Listen to Naval Ravikant, Founder and CEO of AngelList
What does it take to get a true Series A round in 2015? Listen to investors changing the landscape in the early-stages, from Greylock, Storm, Binary, Sprout and press covering venture capital, from Bloomberg West, Thomson Reuters, The Information, StrictlyVC, Homebrew
Learn whether pro rata is a right or a privilege.
Will $5M be the new $500k in the IoT and Wearables Era?
If there are signs of a bubble, how do you avoid paying up?

"The Post Seed Conference is the very first event of its kind," said Paul Martino, managing director of Bullpen Capital. "Startups seem to make or break their future in the post-seed gap, but financing is becoming so difficult to secure during this period. We can see this trend having a huge impact on the future of tech entrepreneurship, and we want to see what the best minds have to say about it."

"This gap is a new phenomenon, making it unfamiliar ground for both entrepreneurs and investors to navigate," said Bambi Francisco Roizen, founder of Vator. "But it's a reality that's not going away. In order to understand how to build the best startups, we need to address how to get through this stage. For early-stage founders and investors, the perspectives on financing and the networking opportunities will be invaluable."

"The Series A 'crunch' is no small matter for startups that are trying to beat overwhelming odds," said Brandon Zeuner at Venture51. "Post Seed is all about giving early-stage entrepreneurs and investors a forum to discuss some of the more pressing issues around fundraising. We want to start the discussion for both entrepreneurs and investors."

To RSVP for the Post Seed Conference, please visit http://postseed.co/

About Bullpen Capital: Bullpen Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm comprised of former founders, CEOs, and operational executives who have started and/or led 15 technology companies over the last twenty years, including 3 IPOs over a billion dollars. Bullpen specializes in partnering with early-stage companies that have achieved product-market fit but still need time before taking on a very large investment -- here, Bullpen catalyzes a smaller priced round, works with the company for about a year, and helps prepare the company for a big inflection point. Our portfolio reflects this belief and strategy. Bullpen was co-founded by Paul Martino (CEO and founder of Aggregate Knowledge), Duncan Davidson (Founder of Covad, Managing Director at VantagePoint), and Rich Melmon (co-founder of Electronic Arts).

About Vator: Founded in 2007 by award-winning veteran finance and tech journalist Bambi Francisco, the Vator media family includes VatorNews, boasting over 500 contributors writing about the business and trends of high-tech innovation; Vator, one of the largest business networks dedicated to entrepreneurship and investors, Vator Splash, an international startup competition and conference series, Vator Competitions, an online competition management and new investment platform.

About Venture51: Venture51 is an early-stage venture capital firm. The firm invests in high technology companies and is based on the premise for a new, modern venture capital firm that supports the most promising founders in high-growth markets. They bring their own entrepreneurial experience, relationships, and marketing/product expertise to the table. They look to back passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable technologies and significant value propositions for their customers.

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SOURCE Bullpen Capital