New Event Series Goes Inside the Boardroom: Young Entrepreneurs Get a Chance to Pitch VCs

The tireless crew at DartBoston, which already organizes a weekly gathering and Webcast for young entrepreneurs, is debuting a new event this month called Capitalize. I love the concept: it's a chance for a young entrepreneur to get into a local venture capital firm, pitch their business, and receive candid feedback. And other entrepreneurs get to be there to observe. There will also be a live Webcast, since most VC boardrooms won't fit more than 15 or 20 people.

I suspect tickets to the monthly Capitalize event will be tough to get; one of the DartBoston organizers, Cort Johnson, says they'll be given out to people who go to their weekly Pokin' Holes event, or who watch the Webcast.

As to how companies will be chosen for the chance to pitch a VC, he writes in an e-mail:

...[We] are hand-selecting all of these companies to the extent that they believe they are ready to raise capital and they have some participation level in Dart like going to a Family Dinner or Pokin' Holes.

The company that will be pitching at Venrock is RiotVine and they're going to be on PH next week...

Capitalize will take place at Venrock this month (where Cambridge partner David Beisel is also the organizer of the monthly Web Innovators Group gatherings); Flybridge Capital Partners in December; and Bain Capital Ventures in January.

Interesting, is it not, that all of the VC firms who've decided to make themselves more accessible to young entrepreneurs are in Boston and Cambridge, not Waltham...? (The stodgy residents of Mount Money insist I'm painting them with too broad a brush, but I'd argue that they're doing the painting themselves.)

Update: Kepha Partners in Waltham has just signed on to host Capitalize in February.