SXSW Pitch has resulted in US$14 billion in capital raises, and it’s coming to Sydney

We’re only a few months away from SXSW Sydney, the first iteration to be held outside of Austin since the festival launched in 1987. Starting as a music festival, it now celebrates the convergence of creativity in every sphere, from films and gaming to tech and entrepreneurship.

For the past decade, it has even become the home of SXSW Pitch, originally titled SXSW Accelerator.

Hungry startup founders were already attending it to pitch their ideas and find investors, now they were able to do it in two minutes to a large crowd and a panel of industry experts.

According to Hugh Forrest, co-president and chief programming officer of SXSW, this event formalised what was already happening at the festival.

And for Aussie startups, they’ll have the chance to do it in October at SXSW Sydney.

SXSW has entrepreneurship at its core

“SXSW has always been about entrepreneurism,” Forrest said to SmartCompany while visiting Sydney recently.

And if anyone would know, it would be him. Forrest joined SXSW back in 1989, only two years after the festival originally launched.

“And I think you can make the case that a young band that’s coming to SXSW to play their first show are in a sense entrepreneurs. Filmmakers who are getting their debut film selected to play at SXSW entrepreneurs also. Game developers as well.”

“So the event is always really celebrated that entrepreneurial spirit of creation, developing new markets and new ideas. The pitch has just formalises that a little more.”

While the prize money in the US isn’t massive, around US$4,000, Forrest says it’s more about the prestige of winning and being showcased in the competition.

And according to the numbers, that has led to massive success. In the ten years that SXSW Pitch has been running, finalists have gone on to raise a collective US$14 billion (AU$20.64 billion).

“I’m not saying all that money came from being at SXSW, but it’s a vote of confidence in the level of startups we’re getting at the event,” Forrest said to SmartCompany.

Part of the inspiration behind formalising SXSW Pitch was Twitter launching at the festival back in 2006, which resulted in the platform going from 20,000 tweets to 60,000 a day. It also kickstarted a ton of extra interest from the startup world.

“Every startup in the world wanted to be at SXSW and every investor, VC, and angel investor in the world wanted to be at SXSW. That really drove so much of our growth from for the next five, six, seven years,” Forrest said.

“I think that’s one of the things that’s so neat about being involved with this event in Austin and what will be so neat with the event in Sydney is having some small but very important role in helping to launch these careers.”

Not a consumer-focused festival

Having such major and emerging players in the cultural and business worlds attend SXSW is one of the key distinctions between it and other conventions.

When tickets for SXSW Sydney originally went on sale, there was some talk over the prices compared to something like PAX Australia, the Sydney Film Festival, or Supanova.

But despite certainly celebrating arts, technology and culture, SXSW isn’t aimed at typical convention goers. And as we know from the programming that has been released so far, SXSW Sydney will have a large focus on the future of work.

“While there are lots of ways for consumers to get involved, it’s not a consumer festival,” Forrest said.

“It’s not a Coachella or an Austin City Limits festival. It’s primarily built for people who are in the creative industry and want to make new connections, get new information, get new inspiration that can help them take their career to the next level.

“It showcases the next generation of talent, the people you haven’t heard about yet, the innovations that you haven’t heard about yet that probably won’t hit the mainstream for two, three or four years.

“On our best days, SXSW is a preview of the future.”