Besides validating an idea with users and building a great product, most startups have to raise money to scale the business.

What are the most productive and effective ways of doing so? How can startups hit the right milestones to raise a seed round of investment successfully?

These are some of the questions we will be discussing with our group of panelists.

*** PANELISTS ***

Andrew Ackerman - Managing Director, Dreamit Ventures

Successful serial entrepreneur, startup mentor, and occasional angel investor. 

Andrew runs Dreamit's Edtech Accelerator and sees over 1000 startups each year, selecting fewer than 20 to work with. He works closely with partners (e.g., Penn State, Blackboard) to develop and execute on their strategies for sourcing external innovation and encouraging internal innovation. 

Andrew is also a contributing writer for Fortune, AlleyWatch, The 74 Million, etc.

Tommy Nicholas - CEO, Alloy

Tommy is the co-founder of Alloy building the best identity verification APIs on the planet. He also helped build coffitivity.com to 4 million users. UVA 2011.

Josh Kuzon, Principal, Reciprocal Ventures

Josh is focused on working with exceptional entrepreneurs pursuing ideas across payments, commerce, banking, lending, and financial management.

He is a seasoned FinTech industry professional with nearly a decade of experience working with companies of all sizes in the financial services ecosystem on strategy, partnerships, investments, and M&A. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Josh worked at Silicon Valley Bank where he managed the day-to-day operations of SVB’s and MasterCard’s joint FinTech startup accelerator, Commerce.Innovated., and led corporate development activities for SVB in the payments and broader FinTech space. Josh also worked at JPMorgan Chase in their Corporate Strategy and Development group where he focused on driving enterprise-wide strategy and innovation across the firm’s mobile, ecommerce, and payments related businesses. Josh dedicated much of his time at JPMC to pursuing partnerships and investments with innovative tech startups, most notably JPMC’s investments in Square (IPO) and GoPago (sold to Amazon). Josh started his career at First Annapolis, where he advised participants in payment-based sectors of the financial services industry on strategy, partnerships, and M&A.