On Tuesday, June 13 ff Venture Capital hosted an extraordinarily successful Enterprise Summit, bringing together leaders from its outstanding portfolio of startups and corporate innovation executives. The full-day affair proved to be an immersive experience, featuring engaging panels, inspiring keynote speakers, curated introductions, and abundant networking opportunities.
The summit attracted an impressive lineup of over 30 enterprise companies, including renowned names such as Google, American Express, Hearst, Visa, Avery Dennison, Lockheed Martin, and New York Life Insurance Company, all eager to explore potential partnerships with the startups within ffVC’s portfolio.
The event commenced with warm welcome remarks, followed by a captivating keynote presentation by Christian Sanz, the Founder & CEO of Skycatch, a software company that partners with construction and mining businesses. As a leading industrial aerial data collection and analytics company, Skycatch is dedicated to extracting critical information from the physical world. Christian shared his insightful experiences collaborating with Caterpillar, a construction equipment manufacturer with an annual earning of $59.4 billion, peppering his talk with anecdotes and valuable insights.
The summit also showcased two panels, three lightning talks, and a fireside chat. The first panel, titled “How Founders Did The Deals,” was moderated by ffVC Partner Maciej Skarul and featured Geoff Michener, Adam Gould, Jesse Canella, and Jonathan Sagot. These accomplished founders shed light on their own strategies for securing significant deals, offering a successful roadmap for other startups to follow. The second panel, moderated by ffVC Partner Oliver Mitchell, provided an insider’s perspective from corporate decision-makers. Titled “Advice from Inside the Enterprise,” the panel featured Ope Runsewe from Amex Ventures, Dina Samra from New York Life Insurance Ventures, Elizabeth Onasanya from Lockheed Martin Ventures, and Phoebe Wang from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund. The panel provided invaluable guidance to the startups in the audience, reminding them of B2B best practices. Additionally, three captivating lightning talks by Maddy Rutter, Michaela Keady, and Vejay Lalla delved into various essentials needed for successful B2B sales, from CX to legal support. Lastly, Einat Meisel, a Partner at Fenwick hosted a fireside chat with Yaron Ben David, CDO at Standard Industries, exploring the mindset for how Yaron makes decisions in bringing startups into various business units at Standard Industries.
The event also showcased startup presentations, offering each company a concise two-minute platform to pitch their ventures. Following the presentations, curated introductions took place in a dynamic “speed dating” format, fostering connections and potential collaborations.
The result was an impactful forum for collaboration, discussion, and partnership exploration, leaving attendees inspired and energized as they continue to shape the future of startup-enterprise collaboration.
This remarkable event would not have been possible without the generous support of our event sponsors: Fenwick, Zendesk, and Thoropass. Fenwick, the leading sponsor, is a specialized law firm renowned for its expertise in the technology and life science sectors. Zendesk empowers companies by providing their customer service agents and sales teams with the essential tools for success, while Thoropass specializes in assisting companies with compliance. ffVC is immensely grateful for their invaluable contributions to the event, helping to make it a resounding success.