Redding’s Inaugural Annual Venture Conference is occurring this spring. It has been specifically designed to display some of the North State’s best and brightest ventures, with an opportunity to take home a cash prize. The Venture Conference will be hosted in the Heart of Redding’s Downtown at Historic Old City Hall.
Friday, May 31st | 8:00 AM- 6:00 PM | Sheraton Redding Hotel at the Sundial Bridge | 820 Sundial Bridge Drive | Redding, CA 96003
Jake Hinton: Hey guys, my name is Jake, and I’m here with Todd, who is the Director of Entrepreneurial Development at the Shasta EDC.
Todd Jones: Nailed it.
Jake Hinton: That was the first time I’ve ever gotten that title right.
Todd Jones: Yeah.
Jake Hinton: So today, Todd is gonna tell us a little about the Redding Venture Conference.
Jake Hinton: So, tell us about that.
Todd Jones: but it’s open to just more than Redding.
Jake Hinton: Okay.
Todd Jones: I’ll tell you about that. So Startup Redding is now its own nonprofit. Although your still kind of in the incubator of the EDC for the time being. And that evolution has happened over the last five years through a heavy investment with the Shasta EDC, getting a local startup ecosystem launched. And actually-
Todd Jones: So, the Redding Venture Conference is coming up on Friday, May 31st at The Sheraton Hotel of Redding at the Sundial Bridge.
Jake Hinton: Right.
Todd Jones: North of the Bay area. And so a local startup in the region is gonna be able to walk away with a $10,000 cash prize. Not really an investment, but there will be an opportunity to also receive an investment from a local Shasta’s Angels group for entrepreneurs.
Jake Hinton: Awesome.
Todd Jones: Yeah.
Jake Hinton: So, if I was to have a … make a startup and I wanted to get this prize, what would I have to do, to do that?
Todd Jones: Yeah, so it could be either, pre-revenue, so just have an idea, or it could be a company that already has some revenue where you just need some extra capital, or you just wanna kinda display yourself up or something like that.
Todd Jones: So right now the process is officially open. You can go to StartupRedding.com and there is a tab on the top that says Redding Venture Conference. You click on that, it’ll take you to a page where there’s more information about the Venture Conference. Kind of, what the format is, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. And then it takes you to an application, a Google form, it’s very simple, it’s very short. Then you fill out the information about your business, upload a short video. Like a one to three-minute elevator pitch of your business. That’s a long elevator ride, but one to three minutes of your pitch, what it is, and then you send that off to Startup Redding. And we’re actually going to vet all of the ideas prior to the event.
Either through private investors that you’ll have an opportunity to pitch to, or most likely, you can fit them all into the Shasta Angels between now and May. So there’s a February meeting, a March meeting, and an April meeting where we’ll be able to hear several pitches at those meetings. And then we’ll be able to narrow it down to the top five companies who will have the opportunity to pitch at Redding Venture Conference.
Todd Jones: And it’s a pretty broad scope right now of what that company can be. It can be a doughnut company, that wants to start a doughnut company in town, or it can be another, some type of a tech bot, tech company. It’s pretty broad right now it just has to be for-profit and really one of the only things that stand out to me for an exclusion right now is something like a franchise or like a direct sales type of a thing. It’s gotta be something new. It can’t be something that’s already in existence but can be like a bakery or something.
Jake Hinton: So, can you wanna start a business. Your in that stage where your a startup, or maybe you just have the idea go to StartupRedding.com.
Todd Jones: StartupRedding.com.
Jake Hinton: And fill out the form.
Todd Jones: Fill out the form, and if you have any questions you can email hello@startupredding.com and we can answer your questions or you can email me at Todd@shastaedc.org. I’m on the board for Startup Redding and,
Jake Hinton: Wow.
Todd Jones: So it’s been a big success. This also leads me into the other topic I wanna talk about which is one of our local startups in town just closed a series C round of funding for $33.5 million.
Jake Hinton: Nice.
Todd Jones: So they started at pitch breakfast, which we have coming up every month. The second Thursday of the month. Pitched at pitch breakfast at the Black Bear Diner six years ago. Went on to pitch to the Shasta Angels which gave them part of their first seed round, which was only a couple hundred thousand total. All their investors, and then they just went on to do their series c round which pulled in $33.5 million.
Jake Hinton: Awesome.
Todd Jones: And they have over 150 employees.
Jake Hinton: Wow.
Todd Jones: So. Or near 150 employees.
Jake Hinton: Okay.
Todd Jones: So we wanted to make more successes like that in Redding. Because we know there’s a lot of great ideas, there’s a lot of creative talent. I think people just need the push to get them to share their idea. The Pitch breakfast is a great place to practice and then you have an opportunity like you have on May 3rd, which is the Redding Venture Conference.
Jake Hinton: It’s pretty exciting.
Todd Jones: A local interest group, they’ve been investing for over four years here locally. And they create a lot of jobs and a lot of funding I should say.
Jake Hinton: Nice.
Todd Jones: And they just started.
Jake Hinton: Nice. Yeah. So there you have it. Fill out the form on the website and six years from now we’ll be talking about your Series …
Todd Jones: Or you might go public get acquired by Google. You never know, there’s a lot of good ways to go. And a lot of people think there’s not enough access to capital in Shasta County for startups and I’ll tell you that’s definitely not the case. If you have a good enough idea and execute on that and go out and hustle, the money will find you. The money will find you.
Jake Hinton: Nice.
Todd Jones: Even up here in Shasta county variance of
Jake Hinton: Awesome.
Todd Jones: So. Don’t let that be a hindrance to you. If you have a good idea, you can get money. Right here in Redding. Redding Venture Conference in May. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
