How to Pitch Your Startup to a Crew of First-Rate Investors

By Chris Bing

May 07, 2015, 05:25pm EDT

On Thursday, Cooley LLP, a Palo Alto-based technology-centric law firm with offices in Reston, Va., hosted an exclusive startup pitch competition with a cohort of venture capitalists in attendance at its Virginia office. This is the sort of event where the right pitch from an energetic startup founder can mean the difference between a $2 million seed round and struggling to keep the lights on a few months down the line. The event was produced in partnership with several high profile corporations, including Deloitte, EY, SpeakerBox and PWC, among others.

Thirteen startups, most of whom were local ventures, took the podium in front of a packed house full of investors, fellow entrepreneurs, patent lawyers and reporters, to prove themselves and the market potential of their ventures.

The semi-annual event, called the Capital Call, is a standardized 3-minute “pitch-off,” where ambitious startup entrepreneurs present their ideas and attempt to convince the audience of the potential of their businesses. Afterward, each of these companies is given a space in Cooley’s office to entertain investors and answers questions from interested parties.

Not a space was left in the room during the presentation, as neither I nor another 30 audience members found seating. Over the sound of an arsenal of crunching potato chips — provided by the venue — and impatient vibrating cellphones sitting neatly in the button ups of D.C.’s investment elite, the event began.

In order to give you an idea of what a first class pitch competition looks like, we grabbed some video from the event. Unfortunately, due to data limitations — thanks Verizon — some of the presentations were either cut short or I was not able to record them, entirely

Here are a few of the local, high potential companies who presented at Cooley, today: