Venturing out in NYC

As part of a calendar of events hosted by Venture Out, a New York based tech industry accelerator, this month some of our NY team attended the STEP USA Pitch night. The event was held in partnership with the German American Chamber of Commerce and gave a platform for 9 tech startups from the German state of RheinlandPfalz to showcase their business, products and future plans.

All companies who presented on the night had just completed the Startup and Entrepreneur Program (STEP) program in New York. STEP is a 5-day course that the German American Chamber runs each quarter, and consists of an intense schedule of classes, workshops and mentoring from New York investors, VCs and partner organizations. The aim of which is to give Germany’s most promising tech startups the opportunity to gain practical business experience and guidance on how to break into the North American market.

The Start-ups ranged from a lab workstation for detecting fingerprints to engineering support, car sales and digital wine sales. (We learned that RheinlandPfalz is the biggest wine-producing state in Germany) We were also treated to a theme song from one of the participants!

STEP USA was attended by a panel of investors and trade, exporting and enterprise experts and gave an opportunity for the businesses to network with some high profile North American venture investors.

STEP is just one part of our engagement with Venture out and the session looks to be promising for OCO providing support for some of the innovative tech start-ups who presented on the night.