IE11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Foreman: Impact Global Venture Summit Highlights Sacramento Region Startups

The inaugural Impact Global Venture Summit was held on Monday in Sacramento at the brand-new, state-of-the-art Golden 1 Center. More than 700 people attended, and 50 startups from Northern California participated in the summit with the goal of providing local startups exposure to investors, writes Techwire contributor Rich Foreman.

The inaugural Impact Global Venture Summit was held on Monday in Sacramento at the brand-new, state-of-the-art Golden 1 Center. More than 700 people attended, and 50 startups from Northern California participated in the summit with the goal of providing local startups exposure to investors.

This was also the big debut for the event's organizer, Impact Venture Capital. Impact VC was formed from Sacramento-based Velocity VC in partnership with Dixon Doll and Eric Ball. Dixon Doll is a well-known Silicon Valley investor with early investments in 20 "unicorn" companies — ventures with a valuation over $1 billion.

Most of the event consisted of pitches from 20 startups. Many were from local startups, such as HomeZada, California Safe Soil, Gatekeeper Innovation and Barobo. Startups from the Bay Area also attended, with Mountain View-based Nightingale Security and Santa Clara-based Cornami each receiving an investment from Impact VC.

The other big star of the summit was the Golden 1 Center itself. For many of the attendees, it was their first visit to what's been called "the most technologically advanced arena in the world." The event, in concert with the arena, really illustrated Sacramento’s emergence as an innovation hub. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson tweeted out, “… Now that's #Sac3pt0!”

Rich Foreman is a contributing writer for Techwire. He is the CEO of Apptology, a Sacramento-based mobile application development and mobile marketing company. He also is the Sacramento director of Startup Grind.