The inaugural Impact Global Venture Summit was held on November 14, 2016 at the brand new, state of the art, Golden 1 Center. Over 700 people attended and 50 Northern California startups participated in the summit with the goal of providing local startups exposure to investors.
Impact VC Founders (left to right): Jack Crawford, Dixon Doll, Eric Ball
This was also the big debut for event organizer, Impact Venture Capital. Impact VC was formed from Sacramento based Velocity VC in partnership with Dixon Doll and Eric Ball. Dixon Doll is a well-known Silicon Valley investor with early investments in 20 unicorn (with a valuation over $1 B) companies.
Most of the event consisted of pitches from 20 startups. Many were from local startups including HomeZada, California Safe Soil, Gatekeeper Innovation, and Barobo. Startups from the Bay Area also attended with Mountain View based Nightingale Security and Santa Clara based Cornami each receiving an investment from Impact VC.
HomeZada Co-Founder John Bodrozic
The other big star of the summit was the Golden 1 Center itself. For many of the attendees, it was their first visit to the most technologically advance arena in the world. The event in concert with the arena really illustrated Sacramento’s emergence as an innovation hub. Sacramento Mayor, Kevin Johnson, tweeted out, “…Now that’s #Sac3pt0!”
