Speed dating brings edtech ventures together with investors
Speed dating is not for the faint hearted but at our first ever edtech speed dating evening we helped to make over 430 introductions in under 3 hours! The event was in partnership with Edmix and Emerge Venture Labs, and 36 edtech ventures from across the UK gathered to ‘date’ our panel of twelve investors at Google Campus. With only 3 minutes to make their pitch, the pressure was on the entrepreneurs to really hone their message and get to the heart of what their product could do.
Kieron Kirkland, from investor the Nominet Trust welcomed this novel approach:
“It was a great opportunity to meet so many new ventures, and see how active the edtech sector is with great entrepreneurs and inspirational ideas that have the potential to make a real impact.”
So, what can we learn from this style of event?
- From the investor perspective, speed dating is a great way of meeting a large number of ventures in a concentrated amount of time, after which you can follow up with those you have a connection with
- We had more productive ‘dates’ with ventures that did their research on investors as they had background knowledge and an idea of the context to start off with
- A product demonstration and a specific call to action really helped ventures stand out from the crowd
- The edtech sector is a flourishing community that clearly thrives off the opportunity to get together, make connections and share experiences with each other. So, events like these can really work but make sure you plan and get the right ventures and investors in the room