There was a VC panel at the conference made up of Sam Angus (Partner, Fenwick & West), Jeff Clavier (Managing Director, SoftTech VC), Jai Das (Investment Partner, SAP Ventures), M.R. Rangaswami (Founder, Sand Hill Group), Gordon Ritter (General Partner, Emergence Capital Partners).

They offered 5 best practices for startups who are looking for funding.

• Team is everything. When pitching to VCs, the first couple slides should be about the team. Who you are, Why you are here.
• Have an amount of funding in mind and slash it in half. Ex. if you need $1Mil, but ask for $500K. Expectation setting and set for sucess
• Persistence.
• Figure out the value system, your company, your product
• Raise money when you can, don’t get hung up on valuation

Obviously, along with the best practices, there are other things they mentioned that startups should be prepared before seeking funding, such as, having a solid infrastructure and operations in place, good product traction and customer adoption and be someone they believe in.

Hopefully, this type of resource will help the local entrepreneurs.