Ritu Jha-
The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) Southern California Chapter (TiE SoCal) is celebrating its 25th anniversary but with a little twist.
The two-day event that starts Friday, July 29, and concludes on July 30, is described as being not just to celebrate the anniversary but to make TiE more focused on investments, while also letting charter members go golfing.
All events are to be held at the Pacific Palms Resort, City of Industry, California.
“Yes, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary, but that’s the past,” Ashish Saboo, the TiE SoCal president told to indica. “This time, we want to celebrate our mission, our vision, and what we are going to do going forward.” This is why TiE Global is joining TiE SoCal to host the TiE Global Angels Investor Summit, one of the largest gatherings of angel investors.
On Thursday, July 28, TiE SoCal would be hosting TiE leadership summit and on July 29, the event kicks off with the golf tournament and is to be followed by an evening gala.
July 30, TiE SoCal is to host the TiE Global Angels Investor Summit, to be attended by members of the global board of trustees, leaders from various other TiE chapters, past leaders from TiE SoCal, investors from more than 40 other investment groups, and various dignitaries, including Dr. TV Nagendra Prasad, the consul general of India, San Francisco.
Asked what to expect at the event, Saboo said, “The current trends, angel investors’ startup ecosystem, how the downturn is affecting the valuation and what founders should be doing to make sure the startups are well funded.”
Saboo added, “At the same time, investors are going to learn about all the latest startups and there will be live pitching as well.”
He said that representatives from 12 pre-evaluated startups would be given 10 minutes of live pitching time. A platform called “Startup Steroid” will help rate the live pitching in real-time.
“The whole idea is to present good, investment-worthy companies to the angel investors and make some real investments happen during the summit itself,” Saboo said.
The keynote speakers for July 30 are Sumant Mandal, co-founder and managing partner, March Capital, and Gregory Shepard, co-founder, BOSS Capital Partners.
“Instead of just TiE SoCal holding our own 25th-anniversary celebration, we are bringing all investors together to create an ecosystem where we can share deals and co-invest,” Saboo said. “We are expecting 250 attendees on July 30. Again that is “our main focus and business.” He added that TiE SoCal is the only chapter that has created an angel investor fund. All the other TiE chapters, including Silicon Valley, have been investing, but at their individual level.
“We charter members have created a fund that actively invests in early-stage startups,” said Saboo. “That was a game changer. With that we were able to attract a lot of companies, and a lot more chapter member engagement.” According to him, charter members have tripled in the last two-and-a-half years and they had invested about $3 million in 20 companies in the last two years, and have invested about half a million dollars in four companies in 2022,” and we are continuing to invest and hopefully during the summit, we might find some good companies to invest in,” he said.
“TiE SoCal charter members are the bedrock of TiE,” Saboo said, saying the group was “fortunate to have had a strong, committed, and growing charter member base in Southern California even during the pandemic. We have seen unprecedented growth in our charter membership, which tripled under previous president Anshuman Sinha and board member Shankar Ram.”
TiE was founded to inspire, foster, and support entrepreneurship in southern California and help professionals with aspirations to start a business venture and learn from other entrepreneurs, through networking and partnership opportunities. The SoCal chapter today has about 180 charter members and 150+ accredited investors.
