Raising $55M in One Year while Breaking Diversity Barriers

Apr 29, 2021, 3:00 – 4:30 PM (UTC)

Grand Rapids

Derek Andersen is the co-founder of Startup Grind and of Bevy. In 2017, Startup Grind spun out our community events software to create what is now Bevy. Bevy powers enterprise event communities for brands such as Google, Facebook, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Twitch, Atlassian, Zendesk, Twilio, and others. Recently, Bevy raised a Series C funding round of $40M, valuing the company at $325M.

Virtual event
Fireside Chat

About this event

This month is startup funding month at Startup Grind, and what a great opportunity it is to host our very own Derek Andersen, Co-Founder not only of Startup Grind, but also of the startup Bevy!

Derek Anderson bootstrapped Startup Grind for 10 years and as of last year, he's begun funding for Bevy. If you’ve joined one of our online events over the last year or so, you probably noticed it was held on Bevy, an enterprise software for virtual conferences and community events. The product that was built for Startup Grind now powers events for customers like Google, Salesforce, Snowflake, Adobe, Zendesk, HubSpot, Roblox, Webflow, Slack, and others, and is helping them build, grow and scale their global communities. Since March 2020, just as COVID-19 hit the world, Bevy announced their first round of funding and raised a total of $55M, and on March 24th 2021 they announced their $40M round C funding at a valuation of $325M!

What’s unique about this funding round is the outreach that Derek made to the community of black investors, resulting in 70% of investors in this round C funding being black investors. Similar efforts have been made with the company’s employee recruitment efforts and a KPI of 20% black employees has been set for the milestone of 150 employees.

Join us and Derek on THU, 29-APR, at 6PM Israel Daylight Time (GMT+3), to learn how you can raise money, and how being inclusive and giving a seat to the underrepresented are good for business. Derek will also share how he decided to make this decision, what meaningful steps he took, what mentors he met with to make sure he was doing it right, and how his profit benefits the greater good.

This talk is moderated by Lirone Glikman, Global Ambassador at Startup Grind and a Global Business Development Consultant.

Check out what happened

Speaker

  • Derek Andersen

    Bevy / Startup Grind

    Co-founder & CEO

When

When

Thursday, April 29, 2021
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM (UTC)

Agenda

3:00 PMWelcome
3:10 PMFireside Chat with Derek Andersen
4:00 PMQ&A and Networking

Organizers

  • Corey Hart, Startup Grind

    Startup Grind

    Chapter Director

  • Renee De Haan

    Principal Financial Group

    Chapter Co-Director

  • Vanessa Mahoney

    Wanderstar Marketing

    Chapter Co-Director

  • Whitney Allred

    WhitMarie Media

    Social Media Manager

  • Sophie Gu

    "Hello My Name Is..." Producer

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