The fourth annual Startup Investment and Community Capital (SICC) Expo was held last week on Monday, September 28 – Wednesday, September 30, 2020. This year’s SICC Expo attracted over 500 attendees who participated in three days of presentations and company/speaker panels. In addition to the speaker and panelists, 19 innovative companies pitched their businesses to panels of 24 investors. This event provided businesses, investors, and the larger Monterey Bay community a forum for pathways to funding local and regional startup business projects.
The theme of this year’s SICC Expo was Recovery and Reinvention: Inclusive Pathways to Capital. The changes wrought by the COVID emergency provided the opportunity for this year’s Expo to re-examine our entrepreneurial system and for a reinvention of businesses and of the funding process around inclusion. Among the many speakers and panelists were experts like Guy Kawasaki, Ben Jealous, and Congressman Jimmy Panetta.
The SICC Expo is a collaboration between the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development at CSU, Monterey Bay, the startup investment community, and Slow Money Monterey. (Due to COVID 19, this year marks the first time the Expo has been held online).
The audience was comprised of over 500 attendees from across the central coast, including:
- Entrepreneurs and Startup Companies
- Angel and Venture Capital Investors
- Lenders and Other Sources of Startup Capital
- Partners in the Monterey Bay Startup Ecosystem
- Students of Entrepreneurship and Startup Finance
- Community Leaders
Sponsors of the 2020 SICC Expo include:
- Solare
- White Summers
- Bank of America
- Law Offices of Maija West
- Santa Cruz Works
- UC Santa Cruz
- Get Virtual
- Hello Desk
- Santa Cruz County Bank
- Cal Coastal SBDC
- Ascend Business Design and Development
- Wild Plum Cafe and Bakery
- 1st Capital Bank
- IP Society
The Expo website, expo.siccmonterey.com, houses recordings of the keynote speakers, panel sessions, pitch sessions, and information about the companies that pitched and sponsors that supported the event. The website will be available to the public beginning Monday, October 5th.
The Expo will return next Fall for its fifth year. Watch the startupmontereybay.com website for more information on this and other events important to entrepreneurs in the region.
