Bay Area Investors
Todd and I have spent the last few days in San Francisco and Oakland. Our focus has been on seeking additional investment and potential pilot partners. Yesterday, we gave pitches to EDM Capital Partners and Stephen DeBerry of Kapor Enterprises.
Our relationship with EDM goes back a year and a half to my first conversation with William “Bill” Thomason of Thomason Capital and the Wall Street Wizards. Bill is a big proponent of financial education as evidenced by his founding the Wall Street Wizards Urban Financial Literacy Program and the Wall Street West Financial Literacy Fund, which offer a mix of classroom education, hands on “real” money management, and on-site career exposure to a group of students interested in finance. He took an early interest in CentsCity and has remained in contact with me as we have pushed forward with product development. He is now one of the Managing Directors of EDM, along with Paula Groves-Hawthorne and Daniel Vasquez.
Our relationship with Kapor Enterprises goes back to 2006 when I was a teacher for SMASH — the Summer Math and Science Honors Academy of the Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI). SMASH and LPFI are funded and operated by Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor, the creator of Lotus 1-2-3 and an “elder statesman” of modern computing. Stephen helps manage KEI’s investments and has long been familiar with CentsCity.
Both pitches went well. With EDM Capital Partners, we are particularly hopeful. We got extremely valuable feedback from the investment team and expect to continue our dialogue into the future.
We are likely too early stage to attract investment from Kapor Enterprises at this juncture. Our focus, as we conclude the present investment round and launch our Alpha, will be on building the relationship with Stephen, Freada, and Mitch toward reaching that next level.
I tell you — each time we do a pitch and demo, we learn so much more and become that much better at telling our story. It’s quite a story, after all, and we’re just getting to the thick of it. Stay tuned.
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