Seedfunders news: Roundtable for startups, partnership with Adrenaline

“Raising Capital for Startups” is the monthly Board of Direction Roundtable discussion from Seedfunders, the investment firm and mentoring organization founded by Dave Chitester and Irv Cohen.

The event takes place at the Station House Wednesday, April 18 from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Chitester and Cohen, entrepreneurs turned startup investors, previously founded Florida Funders, an equity crowdfunding portal that now has more than 800 accredited investor members and a $10 million venture capital fund.

As its name implies, Seedfunders is interested in working with businesses from the ground up – and up. The company’s focus is “pre-revenue scalable technology with a clean cap table,” Chitester told the Catalyst in February. “And that means from the clean cap table, we’d like to be the first professional money in.”

The discussion is free, but registration must be completed by April 9. Register here.

In other news, Seedfunders has formed a strategic partnership with the Adrenaline Venture Fund, headquartered in Naples, to bridge the seed to early stage funding gap and invest in high potential technology startups in Florida.

“Florida’s inability to attract larger venture capital investment has been attributed to a disjointed seed and early stage funding environment that prevents the large numbers of venture capital- ready companies that Florida’s peers produce consistently year over year,” Chitester said in a statement announcing the joint venture.

“The Adrenaline and Seedfunders partnership is a pioneering effort to correct that imbalance.  To solidify this partnership, our two organizations completed a cross purchase agreement where the Adrenaline Fund made an equity investment in Seedfunders, while Seedfunders joined Adrenaline Fund as a limited partner.”

Adrenaline chairman Tim Cartwright echoed Chitester’s enthusiasm. “As active early stage investors, it didn’t surprise me that both Dave Chitester and I decided to launch idea stage, seed capital investment firms around the same time,” he said. “Even though seed capital is usually the first investor in a startup, it is the last frontier when it comes to options for private investors to participate in funding Florida startups.

“I’m proud to solidify the partnership between our firms with a cross investment purchase.  It documents our joint pledge to cooperatively work together to positively impact the startup community in the state of Florida and fund more companies.”