About Early Stage East

Early Stage East's mission is to serve as gathering place for entrepreneurs and those organizations funding and servicing them in order to enable them to grow and succeed. Early Stage East (ESE) was founded in 1998 as a nonprofit organization and has grown from a single-day venture capital conference to a year-round series of fairs. Our events develop entrepreneurs from up and down the East Coast in order for them to more successfully obtain venture capital and successfully start break-away businesses.

Early Stage East holds venture capital conferences, and provides education and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and service providers.

Venture Capital Conferences

The mainstay of Early Stage East is our venture capital conferences. Annually, we hold the Early Stage East Conference for all industries in June of each year in Wilmington, Delaware. In the fall of each year, we hold our Bio-Life-Tech Conference, which focuses on the fields of biotechnology, life science, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology and the related instrumentation and technologies that support these industries. The Bio-Life-Tech Conference moves up and down the East Coast, moving to areas with peak activity in these industries. All of our events focus on entrepreneurs that are seeking early stage institutional funding.

To date, entrepreneurs that have participated in Early Stage East events have gone on to secure approximately $500 million in funding. Venture capitalists and investors attending ESE events have the opportunity to discover early stage companies with potential, while the entrepreneurs have an audience of funds who can provide critically-needed capital and seasoned professionals who can guide them in starting their businesses.

Entrepreneurial Education

Each year, we open the Early Stage East Venture Capital Conference with entrepreneurial education. These sessions feature leaders in the venture capital community who not only present valuable information to our selected companies, entrepreneurs and attendees, but also work closely with them in a workshop environment to reinforce the concepts they've presented. Educational attendees receive the chance to apply the concepts they've learned, valuable take-away materials and contacts with some of the industry's top experts.

Early Stage East also works with other professional development organizations by co-sponsoring and providing speakers for educational events up and down the East Coast. These events, presented in conjunction with these organizations, address a variety of issues facing today's entrepreneurs and provide valuable information at a small or no cost.

Networking

Early Stage East also provides one of the best networking opportunities of the year for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors and service providers. Because of our geographic footprint, we attract the professionals that concentrate on our investment sector. This allows our attendees to meet the best of the best in the industry, from a wide geographic area, with your specific funding needs in mind.

Please feel free to further explore our website to find out about sponsorship opportunities, our venture capital fairs and the many other ways Early Stage East can help you develop your business.