My friends at High Peaks Venture Partners are putting on their annual Peak Pitch event this coming March. It's a one of a kind event where entrepreneurs pitch investors while they ride the ski lifts up Hunter Mountain. Any interested investors and/or companies that wish to attend just let me know by either commenting to this post and/or sending an email to info@hpvp.com. See the invite from Managing Director, Brad Svrluga below:
Investor friends-
Happy New Year to all. I think most of you should have received a Save the Date regarding High Peaks’ fourth annual Peak Pitch event, being held this March 11-12 at Hunter Mountain in the Catskills (a couple hours north from Manhattan, 3 hrs from Rte 128). This was a great event the past three years, as those who have attended can attest. Good companies to meet and a great and fun environment to hang out with some investor friends. We’re returning to Hunter Mountain this year, which proved an outstanding location last year with its terrific lodging and dining right at the base of the mountain, nice rooms, and good bar. The slopeside accomodatons mean you can arrive Thursday night for the dinner and not get into your car until Friday afternoon after skiing. Hunter’s convenience to NYC and Boston make it a great location.
As a refresher, and for those who don’t know, the format is a mashup of the elevator pitch and the traditional venture business plan competition, where investors – wearing green ski bibs – pair off in the lift line with an entrepreneur – wearing a blue bib – and then the entrepreneur has the length of the chairlift to make their pitch. It’s been a lot of fun the last two years – great networking for the investors at the dinners the night before, and a handful of successful funding connections made. We in fact just had a successful exit from a company we met at the first Peak Pitch in 2007. It’s been amazing to see the commitment of some of the entrepreneurs, too – a handful of them in the past had never skied before but then took one day of lessons in advance just so they could come out and meet the VCs.
I hope you’ll be able to join us for this. More details coming soon, but let me know if you have any questions now. Note that novice skiers are more than welcome – we hold the event on a relatively short chair that has access to some very easy slopes down.
Please forward this along to colleagues in your shop or friends from other firms. The more investors the merrier.
Best,
Brad