Start-up pitching competition at upcoming angel investor event

Start-ups will be able to pitch their idea to an exclusive angel investor dinner in Queensland in November, in an event run by start-up networking group Innovation Bay.

Previous angel dinner success stories include group buying site Spreets, taxi booking app goCatch, and social media platform Posse.

Innovation Bay co-founder Ian Gardiner told StartupSmart the event was launched four years ago after they saw a gap in the market to connect emerging tech companies to investors and advisors.

“We realised if we wanted to help tech start-ups, we could encourage those with business ideas to pitch to get investment or advice or both to a room full of investors and clever people with experience,” Gardiner says.

Four start-ups pitch at the event. The four are selected from 90 second video pitches. Gardiner says they get 15 to 25 pitches for each event.

The Innovation Bay team narrows the options down to nine, and the investors and guest at the dinner then vote via a private site to select the top four who will pitch for seven minutes and answer questions for eight minutes on the night.

Gardiner says video pitches need to be very focused to make it through this process.

“Tell us what the idea is, what the problem you’re solving is, who is your target audience and what are you asking for here,” Gardiner says.

“The start-ups that show a bit more activity and content than just head and shoulders of an entrepreneur in their bedroom with a webcam do well, so think about graphics, charts or footage of the product in action.”

He adds that the video pitch gets you to the event, but entrepreneurs need to be able to engage the whole room on the night.

“The best ever video pitch we ever had was tight and focused and articulated the business really well. Then they turned up and did a pretty poor pitch and got no outcome from it,” Gardiner says, adding about 50% of the businesses that pitch have achieved investment from the evenings, including two at the August event.

Start-ups need to submit their video pitch before November 1 to be considered for the event.