Peak Pitch 2009

I had the pleasure of participating in the 3rd Annual Peak Pitch event at Hunter Mountain yesterday.  Peak Pitch takes the VC-Entrepreneur mass dating ritual to a new level by incorporating a ski mountain; think of it as speed dating for VCs and entrepreneurs.  The capital providers and seekers meet at the chair lift, the VCs adorned in green bibs, the entrepreneurs in blue.  On the 5-6 minute chair ride up the hill, the entrepreneurs pitch the VCs saving the last minute or so for questions.  The VCs are given fake money, $5M Peak Pitch Pesos to hand out at their discretion.  Some choose to scatter the money, $1M at a time.  Others attempt to control the outcome by giving all $5M to one company (you know who you are).  I tend to choose 2-3 companies to split the capital.  If you were to plot the process of each VC against the stage, focus and mandate of the funds they represent, you would expect to see the later stage folks dividing the capital among one or two companies and the early stage folks scattering.  I had a chance to observe the process employed by the various VCs and I found that their allocation decisions were completely contrary to the mandates of their respective funds.  There really isn't anything to read into there as the money is pretend and we haven't done any due diligence etc.  I just found it interesting.

Thursday night all of the capital providers and attorneys gathered for the annual investors dinner.  Each year, the dinner evolves or degrades into long night of drinking.  We tend to start the night with wine or beer.... by the end of the night the drink orders stray toward single malt scotches, Grey Gooses and shots of various spirits.  Conversation topics had a similar trajectory; we started by focusing on our friend Scott Murphy's (a fellow upstate NY VC) bid for Kirsten Gillibrand's vacated House of Representatives' seat.  By dinner, we were on to more sophisticated topics; for example, my table had a fascinating 15 minute conversation about ice fishing.  At the end of the night, we were speaking about weight lifting- to be specific, bench pressing.  I know, a bunch of VCs and lawyers talking about benching........ 

Friday morning we gathered at Hunter Mountain for pitching and skiing.  This year, we had 28 entrepreneurs so at the bottom of the mountain next to the chairlift they gathered and eagerly stalked the VCs as they finished their runs.  I probably only heard 12 of the 28 pitches.  The weather was pretty lousy- high 40's, rain and wind- so I only made about 8 runs.  Good times were had by all despite the weather.  Some interesting companies, good connections lots of fun.  Many thanks to my friends at High Peaks for hosting the event and Duane Morris, Nixon Peabody and Phillips Lytle for their sponsorship.

That's about all I have on Peak Pitch this year.