Over the past few years, David Blu­men­stein, Founder and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of The Hatch­ery in New York, and I main­tained an ongo­ing dia­logue about our respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. Then, in mid-2010, Seth Elliott and I formed a new orga­ni­za­tion, The Startup Forum, to fos­ter the devel­op­ment of vibrant regional startup com­mu­ni­ties. We were priv­i­leged to have great speak­ers and we held a series of edu­ca­tional and net­work­ing monthly mee­tups, with an aver­age atten­dance of 60 to 70 peo­ple. It was a great start, but still a far cry to Boul­der and Austin, which we looked up to for hav­ing devel­oped suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur­ial com­mu­ni­ties. We were also impressed by the evo­lu­tion of New York city as a hub for entre­pre­neur­ship and ven­ture capital.

So it is with the antic­i­pa­tion of great things to come that we are announc­ing that The Startup Forum and The Hatch­ery, a New York City based orga­ni­za­tion, have today announced the for­ma­tion of the Hatch­ery Miami. The fol­low­ing is the press release about our collaboration:

The Hatch­ery fos­ters Ven­ture Col­lab­o­ra­tion between the investor and entre­pre­neur com­mu­ni­ties — host­ing and pro­duc­ing events, sem­i­nars and show­cases through­out the year. These activ­i­ties expand and strengthen the ecosys­tem of entre­pre­neurs, start-ups, and ven­ture investors. These events include:

Are You Seri­ous: Held reg­u­larly, this is a start-up pitch event cen­tered upon edu­cat­ing both par­tic­i­pat­ing star­tups and audi­ence mem­bers. The event is designed to teach by exam­ple – offer­ing direct feed­back designed to improve com­pa­nies and pitches. Sev­eral star­tups offer 5 minute pre­sen­ta­tions based on The Hatchery’s 11-point pre­sen­ta­tion check­list. A panel of expert judges pub­licly reviews pre­sen­ters, offer­ing con­struc­tive (yet enter­tain­ing) criticism.

The Gaunt­let: Sched­uled quar­terly, these events show­case 3 promis­ing com­pa­nies – assist­ing in mov­ing to the “next level.” These are invi­ta­tion only events – both for the pre­sent­ing com­pa­nies and the audi­ence mem­bers. Atten­dees usu­ally include angel investors, ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists and related cor­po­rate pro­fes­sion­als. This event is intended for later stage com­pa­nies, who are look­ing for insti­tu­tional invest­ment upwards of $5M.

Hatch Match: Each year, New York’s investor and entre­pre­neur­ial com­mu­ni­ties come together in for a series of inten­sive meet­ings. Essen­tially, Hatch Match is speed dat­ing for star­tups and investors. In the space of one evening approx­i­mately 1000 speed dates takes place with 500 entrepreneurs.

Hatch­ery Miami plans to hold sim­i­lar events, serv­ing as a con­duit between South Florida’s promis­ing start-ups and angel investors, ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists, fel­low entre­pre­neurs and strate­gic investors and part­ners in New York and beyond.

“There is an inher­ent syn­ergy between South Florida and New York City,” remarked Seth Elliott, co-Founder of The Startup Forum and Hatch­ery Miami. “The oppor­tu­nity exists to ‘food chain’ South Florida com­pa­nies into the New York ven­ture invest­ing ecosys­tem, allow­ing entre­pre­neurs and investors to mutu­ally benefit.”

Yao Huang, co-Founder of the Hatch­ery noted “As a result of our New York activ­i­ties, The Hatch­ery is becom­ing a mar­quis global brand in the entre­pre­neur­ial finance space. South Florida rep­re­sents a nat­ural exten­sion, and we are con­fi­dent that New York investors will get to see a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of promis­ing com­pa­nies not cur­rently on the radar screen.”

The Hatch­ery Miami will hold its first Are You Seri­ous event on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2011 hosted by Miami Dade Col­lege. Fur­ther details on the event will be released shortly.

About The Startup Forum. The Startup Forum seeks to fos­ter the devel­op­ment of vibrant regional startup com­mu­ni­ties. TSF encour­ages entre­pre­neur­ial for­ma­tion and growth and pro­motes early stage regional invest­ments. TSF serves three pri­mary con­stituen­cies: entre­pre­neurs, investors (both insti­tu­tional and angel) and gov­ern­ment (and related not-for-profit) orga­ni­za­tions. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found at http://www.startupforum.net/.

About The Hatch­ery; The Hatch­ery is a ven­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion and advi­sory firm serv­ing as a ven­ture cat­a­lyst for emerg­ing and estab­lished com­pa­nies in the Tech­nol­ogy, Energy, Health­care, and Social Impact sec­tors — domes­tic and inter­na­tional. It pro­vides Busi­ness, Strate­gic and Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment ser­vices to its clients and along with its affil­i­ated Invest­ment Bank directly par­tic­i­pates in trans­ac­tions: Pri­vate Place­ments, Merg­ers & Acqui­si­tions. http://www.hatchery.vc/

startup, entre­pre­neur­ship, com­mu­nity, tech, ven­ture cap­i­tal, south florida