On December 16^th Ethos 360 attended FundingUniverse’s CrowdPitch Event located at the NedSpace facility in Portland, Oregon.  CrowdPitch brings entrepreneurs, innovators, mentors, support providers, and investors together in an informal and energetic setting. Five local entrepreneurs had four minutes to pitch their company to both a panel of experts and a live audience, followed immediately by a three minute Question and Answer session with the panel. The panel was made up of investors and other area professionals who have deep roots in the local entrepreneurial community.

The attendees and the panel help the entrepreneurs refine their pitch or business model with real world feedback. Worksheets are provided to those in attendance to rate and critique each company that’s presenting along with “monopoly cash” to make an “investment” in the company or companies they feel are the strongest. After all of the presentations, two winning presenters will be announced based on the amount of “monopoly cash” that is “invested” (one by the panel of expert investors and the other by the audience).

Did I mention these events are FREE to attend and present at?

FundingUniverse (www.fundinguniverse.com) is a top-notch organization that connects entrepreneurs and investors along with providing entrepreneurs the tools and resources to become fundable.  They are leading the way with their very well organized effort to entrench their CrowdPitch events in major national markets and to help fuel entrepreneurial growth at a grassroots level. They are giving back in a BIG way.

Kudos to Alex Lawrence, partner at FundingUniverse, who we had the good fortune and pleasure to meet.  Alex brought an amazing level of energy, passion and levity to what can often times be a very stressful moment in an entrepreneur’s development.  Below is an excellent news story about CrowdPitch along with an interview with Alex.

In addition, Ethos 360 wants to thank the following sponsors involved with making FundingUniverse’s Portland CrowdPitch Event a resounding success.

Stoel Rives- www.stoel.com
NOWAdvisors- www.nowadvisors.com
SEO.com- www.seo.com
NewsWire- www.newswire.net
Jive- www.getjive.com
NedSpace- www.nedspace.com

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Tags: alex lawrence, angel investors, entrepreneurism, entrepreneurs, fundinguniverse, nedspace, pitching, portland, speedpitch, start-ups, startup, venture capital

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am and is filed under angel investors, business start-up, entrepreneurism, entrepreneurs, raising capital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.