A buzz of chatter filtered out into the hall at AppNexus — one of the vital organs of New York City’s Silicon Alley — as 40 startups from Columbia Business School pitched their new companies and products to a diverse crowd of students, professional advisors, alumni, and early-stage investors.
The gathering was part of the School’s Startup Week, which included a reception with food provided by alumni and student-led culinary startups, a networking night with serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan — founder of Gilt Groupe, Business Insider, and MongoDB — and the Fall Venture Fair at AppNexus.
“I love to come to this event to see what the students are working on and how I can open my network to them,” said Robert Delman ’98, an advisor at the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center and the managing director of Golden Seeds.
The Fall Venture Fair “is meant to be both educational and informational,” Vince Ponzo ’03, director of the Lang Center, wrote in a letter to attendees. The Venture Fair provides a forum for investors and potential business advisors “to gain exposure to some of the amazing ideas and entrepreneurs” at Columbia Business School.
The startups at the Venture Fair encompassed consumer products, financial services, retail, education, energy, healthcare, and foods and beverages. Amper, a tech platform that “allows you to create a Hollywood-quality musical score for your video content,” was a mere table away from Thursday Boots, which merges “the durability of the work boot with the sophistication of a fashion boot.”
While a well-stocked bar and two tables of snacks gave the event a convivial air, the participants were all business. At the table for BorrowBridge, cofounders Diego Cuenca ’16, Franceso Citoni ’16, and Shelton McCollough ’15 had just pitched their product (a lending platform to help students access credit from alumni, institutional investors, and the public) to someone from Capital One. They got a lot of “good feedback,” according to McCollough.
Nearby, Kevin Mulligan ’15 was pitching Power 7 — a fee-based nonprofit that “uses sea-based operations to purify and provide bulk water delivery services to water-poor and water-starved markets.” Mulligan, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, hopes Power 7 can help the more than 1 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean water. “If you go outside territorial waters, you’re now dealing with free water,” he explained. The plan is to take that water, purify it, and then distribute it where it’s needed most.
As Mulligan finished explaining how Power 7 worked, he was approached by a Coast Guard veteran and managing partner of a top compensation consulting firm, and the pitch began again.