Adding Value to Startups: Club M25 Summit 2.5
225 founder <> investor 1-on-1 meetings in <36 hours.
I feel like we’re starting to get the hang of this.
If you’ve read our posts about the Club M25 Summits in the past, you know we (M25) do these 2-day events twice a year with the goal of lifting our portfolio, feeding that community, and creating better connectivity in the Midwest ecosystem abroad. This year we had 70 founders from 45 startups across 11 Midwestern states in attendance. We also had over 67 investors, including 45 VC firms participating as well — hitting again on our goal of a 1:1 ratio of founders in our portfolio to potential next round investors.
Aside from the 225 meetings between founders and potential next round investors that our team coordinated, our format largely stayed the same — kicking off most of the ‘festivities’ with our Investor Social Thursday evening. The night was rounded out by a founder dinner and an investor dinner, and we got started early the next morning with talks, breakout sessions and founder-founder interactions throughout Friday. There were some awesome new additions this time around though, and I’ve highlighted a few below.
Corporates
As investors in early startups, our founders typically ask us for three major types of connection types — capital, customers/strategics, and talent. We decided to incorporate customers/strategics this time, and brought in folks from M12 (Microsoft), GE Ventures, PepsiCo, Allstate Ventures, and the Chicago Cubs. Each group took ~6 meetings each with hand-picked companies from our portfolio in attendance.
Speakers
We had an awesome lineup of new speakers including Elliott Robinson, Partner @ M12, Lisa Marrone, Principal @ August Capital, Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka, Principal @ Canaan, Raaja Nemani, Co-founder & CEO @ Bucketfeet, and Jason Weingarten, Co-founder & CEO @ Yello.
We also had some incredible sessions led by C-suite (within Club M25) at Chowly, Summersalt, Cheddar, and Costello.
D&I
Diversity and Inclusion is a priority for our firm, and we’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to invest in 26 diversely co-founded teams (roughly 36% of our portfolio). As we continue to find ways to improve our own approach to D&I, we want to do the best we can to help equip the founders we’ve partnered with to do the same.
Elliott Robinson led a discussion for our founders on the true benefits around diverse teams, as well as practical approaches he’s seen be effective as a board member and investor in startups.
Rooftop
What can we say? If you don’t know about Chicago summers, then I’m not sure I can help you. If you do… you also know a rooftop party would make for the perfect afterparty, and that’s why we had one on the roof of the Civic Opera building in downtown Chicago.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0) about M25’s approach to adding value to startups, we genuinely get excited about creating meaningful value-add for Club M25. The Club M25 Summits are just one way that M25 aims to do this. Whether you’re a founder looking to raise capital from us or another investor, it’s by far in your best interest to partner with someone who’s both excited about and has “referenceable work” of finding meaningful ways to add value to your vision.
About the Author
M25 is one of the most active venture capital firms focused solely on early-stage investments in the Midwest. Their objective, analytical approach has helped support their thesis and craft what is known as an ‘index fund of Midwest startups.’ M25 has already invested in over fifty companies since their inception in 2015, and continues to invest in over twenty companies each year. Their collaborative, forward-thinking style and diverse array of investments across industries and business models throughout the region has quickly established them as a key node in the Midwest startup ecosystem.
Mike Asem is a director of M25. Mike is a proud alum of Purdue University, where he championed The Anvil coworking space and incubator, led business development for a nanotech startup, and mentored and worked with startups as a director of the Purdue Foundry.
Twitter: @M25vc
About Midwest Startups
Midwest Startups is the best resource for all things startups and tech in the Midwest. Create one profile to access job opportunities at several dozen venture-backed tech startups in the Midwest. Developed by M25 — one of the most active early-stage investors across the region — to create a hub for aspiring and experienced talent to easily access the fastest-growing companies where they want to work.
Twitter: @MidwestStartups
