RustBuilt Investor Day Connects Leading Startup Founders and Investors from Across the Region
Over 120 startup founders from across the Rust Belt region connected with the more two dozen participating venture funds, family offices, and angel investors from Pittsburgh, Austin, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Miami, Rochester, and New York at this year’s RustBuilt Investor Day. The event featured a day of networking, investor workshops on advice for founders in the current investment climate, and the evening’s big Regional Pitch competition, the RustBuilt Startup Showdown.
Olivia Goldstein, Vice President at StartFast Ventures who attended from Buffalo, noted that a lot of her work is centralized around Upstate New York, but regional events like this one helps expand their impact and makes the regional startup environment feel less siloed.
“We’re all kind of at the point where we have this growing, bubbling ecosystem,” Goldstein said. “There’s so much overlap in our joint histories. One of my major takeaways was ‘how can we work more collaboratively to get these groups together?' ... There are a lot of really interesting companies in these geographies. The challenge for a lot of these early-stage companies is they don’t always have the sources or the networks to find investors. Having these types of events where they’re able to be put in the room with new faces and new people who are willing to help them or in some cases even invest in them is really important.”
Jack Greco, a partner at FarOut Ventures, said that while it was important to tear down any silos preventing collaboration across the region and specific ecosystems within the world of startups, smaller cities shouldn’t lose their identities in the process.
“It’s the concept of ‘our city’ that I think is important also,” he said. “This is where small cities have an advantage. In Buffalo, we care a lot more about where we’re from than they do there. We’re trying to be too much like them. I feel like sometimes we’re like ‘ok we want to be a little New York or San Francisco,’ and that’s the last thing we should want. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not in our DNA.”
Mueller echoed Greco, and said that regions like Pittsburgh have spent “way too much time, money, and goodwill trying to be the next anywhere else.”
“We’re finally realizing that to take the next leap, we need to double down on our actual strengths, and focus on being the next great Pittsburgh,” he said.
Mitch Kokko, a partner with Valley Capital Partners, is a recent transplant and opened the firm’s new headquarters in Pittsburgh earlier this year.
“Pittsburgh fits every criteria for what we as a firm were looking for in a Midwest hub- a healthy and growing startup ecosystem, strong educational institutions with leading research programs in the region, affordable cost of living, and a number of active investors who are helping shape some great investment opportunities.”
While Kokko said many of the startups at RustBuilt Investor Day were a little early for Valley Capital to invest in right now, it was important to get to know the people in the ecosystem here and share insight about what later-stage investors are looking for.
“The earlier we can start talking to founders, the better,” he said. “...We see it as a virtuous cycle. In order for any local ecosystem to be successful, you need people from all stages, and this event helps achieve just that.”
Sree Gadde, a partner with BlueTree Capital, added to Kokko, saying that having an awareness of companies at any stage within a region is vital.
“For companies at this stage, we do spend a lot of time talking with them about how they could better approach fundraising in general to get better outcomes down the road,” he said. “It’s the idea that not all capital is created equal; each company needs to be very strategic about what type of capital they’re trying to bring in to accomplish what kinds of goals.”
Kit Mueller, the founder of RustBuilt, emphasized unifying the region. “As much as the former rust belt region has a shared legacy in building America, we hope efforts like these help the amazing startups building in the region shape our shared future prosperity,” he said.
6 days ago1 comments
Adam Paulisick2 days ago
Congrats to everyone who met 20+ investors that day!