Last year, General Catalyst and CRV announced the launch of a program called the Velocity Network, to get their startups in front of Fortune 500 executives in New York City. Today, they announced that Mayfield has joined as the third VC firm in the network.
New York is home to financial, insurance, security, retail, media and other Fortune 500 companies - industries that young companies would like to talk to. However, it’s a challenge for an enterprise startup with a handful of customers to get the attention of executives at top companies.
Molly Gillis, a principal at General Catalyst said that the companies launched the network last year at the behest of their portfolio company founders who expressed a strong desire for a platform that provided access to NY-based customers. The two companies came together to form the network as a way to differentiate themselves from the rest of the VC pack and provide additional value to enterprise companies under their purview.
Mayfield has a similar program going on in Silicon Valley called the CXO Network, which gives their portfolio companies the opportunity to talk to local executives about their products and services. Navin Chaddha, a partner at Mayfield says they saw joining Velocity as a way expand the idea to give their portfolio companies more access to east coast decision makers.
Since launching a year ago, the network has hosted 12 monthly meetings in New York City, resulting in over 350 face-to-face meetings between startups and enterprise execs. Meetings are designed around themes such as cloud and analytics or next generation retail. Each firm invites about 5 startups to come along and they invite executives to come in who share an interest with the theme.
Each meeting follows a similar arc, says Gillis. It starts with a round table discussion to see what’s top of mind. Then startups go into a conference room to meet one-on-one with companies. There is usually a guest speaker from one of the firms, and they wrap up with networking and lunch.
Powerful decision makers get more than lunch out of the deal though. They also get to stay updated on emerging technologies and talk directly with the people who are developing them. What’s more, they get to hang out with other executives and managers from companies who are facing a similar set of issues.
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